i hear an army charging upon the land
by kapteeni
Summary: AU where Hijikata and Gin meet while they are teenagers, or "Hijikata found the soldier lying in the shrine, one leg stretched out on the straw."
1. i hear an army charging upon the land

Hijikata found the soldier lying in the shrine, half-hidden behind the offertory box, one leg stretched out on the straw. At first he thought one of the old men of the town had drunk too much and fallen asleep here. He had white hair, white as the snow that would start falling in a few months, but as he approached, Hijikata realized that he didn't look any older than him. Hijikata didn't know much about the foreign invaders, but maybe that meant he was one of them. An Amanto.

But what really caught his attention was the smell of death, and the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of the open wound in the soldier's leg.

The soldier didn't even glance up as Hijikata, a practice sword under one arm, approached. He was massaging his thigh, wincing at his own touch.

"What the hell?" Hijikata said. He wasn't equipped to deal with any irregularities here. He had come to this shrine specifically because no one else did. Sougo taunted him whenever he noticed Hijikata was doing, well, anything, and while Hijikata definitely could stand up to an eleven year old, sometimes it was just easier to sneak away.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that there was a wounded man in the shrine, and he was clearly a soldier. He had armor and everything, something Hijikata had only ever seen on display in the dojo. There had never been war in this village. Though it had to be close now, if a soldier this wounded was here. Even if he was a deserter, he couldn't have made it far with that leg.

"Get out some brushes and paint a picture, it'll last longer," the soldier said. "Go on, I'm a good subject. I'm not going to move. I can even help you make a haiku to put in the corner if you want. How about, 'Go and fuck yourself, you stupid backwoods farm brat, is soldier's last breath.'"

"Fine words," Hijikata sneered. "Hard to believe a modern day Ono no Takamura like you is dying like a dog." No, that wasn't the right reaction. Hijikata was panicking and trying not to show it, and being contrary on instinct. He should be forcing the soldier away, or using his sword for something other than practice.

The soldier pushed himself up with one hand, looking for all the world like he wanted to pull the arrow out of his leg and stab Hijikata with it. But he fell back with a pained grunt, his head thudding against the wall. The bell above the offertory box shook. "Damn it," he swore. "Just get out of here kid, let a dog die in peace."

Hijikata, grateful for the excuse, fled. Outside the gate, well out of the soldier's view, he sunk to the ground and put his head on his knees. What was he going to do? He couldn't just let someone die in a shrine. What if the soldier was on their side? What would he do when someone found the body?

The war must be close. Closer than it had ever been before. It would start affecting this village before long. For all he liked to tell Kondo that he knew much, much more than anyone else in this place, just because of the sheer breadth of his experience, he didn't have any idea about what a real war was like. He only knew the stories of soldiers marching through towns, trampling the fields and forcing themselves into people's homes. Mitsuba wouldn't be able to make it.

He went to the dojo, and was immediately slaughtered by Sougo. That wasn't anything unusual. Sougo was a prodigy, and Hijikata was probably the only one left at the Tennen Rishin Ryu school who challenged him on a regular basis. He had heard rumors that, before Hijikata had arrived at the dojo, Sougo had clashed swords with the Lord of Shirakawa's fencing instructor, a man thrice his age and with double his experience, and won. Hijikata didn't know if this was true, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Kondo must have seen something was on his mind though. Maybe his reactions were slower today, or his replies to Sougo's taunts seemed rote. Kondo was an idiot, but he was good at noticing things like that. He pulled Hijikata out of the dojo and set him off on some inconsequential errand, his thick eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

Ally or enemy, Hijikata couldn't let anyone die alone in a shrine. He sprinted back to Kondo's home, grabbed the first food he saw, which turned out to be a plate of rice balls Mitsuba had probably left for him, and went back to the shrine. He paused outside the door, ran to Mitsuba's house, snuck in, and filled a bag full of cheap medicines and bandages. Kondo wouldn't have anything like this, but Mitsuba had enough to fill a pharmacy. If it was all for her Hijikata wouldn't have even considered taking it, but he had often caught Sougo, embarrassed by his sister's overprotectiveness, peeling of bandages before going to practice. He'd pay her back later.

When he got to the shrine, out of breath, the soldier was sitting with his eyes closed. It didn't look like he had moved at all. For a moment Hijikata was afraid he was too late, that he was already dead, but as he got closer, the soldier opened one eye and stared at him.

"What?" he snapped. "I'm not a tour guide. I don't care if you've never seen someone die before, I'm not going to walk you through the process."

"You're not going to die," Hijikata said, and it came out less reassuring than he had hoped for. Though, if anyone was going to threaten someone with life, it would end up being Hijikata.

He held up the rice balls. The soldier opened his other eye, stared at the food for a moment, then sat up. Hijikata pulled them out of his grasp. He had brought the practice sword with him, just in case. He might not be able to trump Sougo, but he was sure he'd be able to defeat a common soldier like this guy, even if he wasn't wounded. After all, Sougo was the eldest of son of a samurai who served a direct retainer of the shogun, while soldiers like him were just whatever slag the generals could scrape off the street, not formally trained in any kind of swordsmanship. The only advantage they would have over someone like Hijikata was experience, and Hijikata had plenty of that.

"Which side are you on?" Hijikata asked.

The soldier kept his eyes on the rice balls. "Which side do you want me to be on?" Hijikata frowned and moved away. The soldier sighed. "Joui."

Hijikata wanted to throw the food in his face, but he resisted. That's probably what scum like him would want. No, Hijikata had to educate him. "Don't you know what a terrible idea that is?" he said. They might not have gotten a lot of contact with the war, here in this small town, but whenever a dignitary came around they would stop and speak with Kondo about it in hushed voices. Those were the only times Hijikata ever saw Kondo looking truly worried. "Not even the Shogun wants to keep the Amanto around forever, he just knows Japan doesn't have enough weapons technology to risk a full-on war with the universe. All you Joui are doing is expediting Japan's fall because you don't want to rub shoulders with foreigners long enough to learn their secrets. And 'Revere the Emperor'? Do you know how long it's been since the Imperial Court has had any real power? The Emperor doesn't know anything about politics. The whole movement is ridiculous."

The soldier had grabbed a rice ball was Hijikata was gesticulating wildly. "Cool," he said, his mouth full. "Hey, these are pretty good."

"Don't you care?" Hijikata asked desperately, handing him the rest. "You're risking your life for something idiotic."

"Yeah," the soldier said. "I know that, at least." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Listen. Since you gave me food, I'll give you some advice, honed from years of wisdom. Keep your ears clean, okay. Would you jump off a bridge if your friends did?"

Hijikata didn't have any friends, so when he answered, he wasn't sure if he was telling the truth. Unless Sougo counted as his friend, in which case, the bridge was probably about to collapse anyway. "No," he said.

"What if your friends are a lot smarter than you?" the soldier said, stuffing another rice ball in his mouth. He didn't even seem to notice the spice that Mitsuba had no doubt ruined them with. He ate like he hadn't seen food in weeks. Maybe he hadn't. "What if you were absolutely confident that, if smart people like them were jumping, there was probably a good reason to do it?"

Hijikata frowned. "I wouldn't just depend on them," he said. "I'd have to work it out by myself. So you joined a war because it's what your friends were doing? Aren't you saying you're just too dumb to care about why you're fighting?"

"Too many questions, kid." The soldier finished off the last of the rice balls and leaned back against the wall. "I know why I'm fighting. But I'm not about to tell some guy in the boonies all about—"

"Well, it doesn't matter," Hijikata said. "I don't care about whatever you have that passes for thought. Show me your leg."

"I just said I wasn't going to tell you. Are you not listening to what I'm saying? Are your ears so filled with wax that you can't hear me? Didn't I tell you to keep them clean? Hey, don't just—oh, gods." The soldier bit through his lip when Hijikata touched his ankle. Hijikata pulled his hand away, but the damage was already done.

The soldier had closed his eyes again and held his breath, his hands balled into fists and his knuckles white with the effort. Blood trickled down his mouth as the soldier's teeth tore into his bottom lip, trying to keep himself from screaming. He pounded at the floor, splintering the wood.

He's strong, Hijikata thought. And then, I wonder if I would have the strength not to scream.

Hijikata moved back and watched as the soldier eventually let out a groan and started breathing again, his fingers unclenching.

"I brought medicine," Hijikata whispered in the quiet. "You have to get out of here by tomorrow." He had prepared that line while rummaging through Mitsuba's medicine box. Now it didn't seem as cool. He shoved the bag into the soldier's hands and stood up. "Take care of yourself."

The soldier grabbed Hijikata's wrist. His face was still twisted with pain, and when he spoke, his voice was breathy and laborious. "Why don't you just kill me?" he asked.

Hijikata jerked back, trying to twist his arm out of the soldier's grasp, but the soldier held firm. "Are you stupid?" he continued. "I'm a wounded enemy camping out within a few minutes walk of everyone you have ever held dear." He let go of Hijikata and spread out his arms, exposing his chest. "Have you never killed anyone before, kid? I can teach you that, at least."

On reflex, Hijikata put his hand on the hilt of his practice. He let go as soon as he realized that gave the opposite impression from what he had intended, but not before he saw the look of resignation—relief—in the soldier's eyes. "You want to die or somethin'?" Hijikata snarled. He leaned over the soldier, his hair falling over his shoulder. "Well, I'm not a tool to grant your fucked up wish. It would be dishonorable to slay someone as weak as you. Come back after you've healed."

The soldier sighed. "Fine." He glanced at the rolled up bandages. "I guess I don't get why you're wasting expensive shit like this on me," he said. "But unless you just like throwing money away, you're gonna have to help me." Wincing, he rolled up his pant leg, tearing it open around the arrow.

Hijikata did his best not to throw up. Through some stroke of fortune, it wasn't gangrenous, or at least not yet, but the whole leg was raw. Or no, that wasn't right, only some of it was. The other parts were cooked, burnt black. There wasn't an inch of pure skin, just a bloody mess of meat. He could see slick bone poking out around where the soldier's knee should be.

Strapped to the leg with a torn piece of cloth was a sword sheath, complete with sword. The soldier must have been using it as a brace.

"It's that high-tech weaponry you were talking about," the soldier said, his voice too cheerful. "You get hit with an arrow, you think, 'Oh well!' and then it explodes on you. I mean, it's not so bad. I still have a leg. Hey, kid, please don't pass out on me, I'm not in any position to catch you."

Hijikata sunk to the floor. "How did you get here?" he asked, his head in his hands.

"Huh?"

Hijikata tried to keep calm. He had to keep calm. It had been his choice to deal with this alone, he wasn't going to go running to Kondo now. "How did you manage to come all this way on a leg like that?"

"I walked." The soldier paused. "Crawled."

"It must be close then," Hijikata said. "How come we can't hear it, if you're fighting so close to us?"

The soldier frowned. He did look genuinely sad, which surprised Hijikata. He didn't expect a soldier to sympathize with being too cowardly to join the fighting. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It won't hit a dump like this. You don't even have a single brothel. I checked. And," his voice dropped, like he was telling it to himself more than Hijikata, "Who knows how much longer they'll go on without me?"

Hijikata wanted to hit him. Didn't he realize how serious this was? This place couldn't survive being a war front. They'd kill the crops and burn down houses, they'd forcibly recruit every man and boy at Kondo's dojo, maybe the farmers too, they'd hurt Mitsuba. The one place left in the world Hijikata could call home, and it was going to be destroyed by people no better than bandits.

The soldier was rubbing his shoulder. "Kid. Kid, calm down. No one's going to come here." He lightly smacked Hijikata's cheek. "We're headed in the opposite direction, and I fight pretty far out. I was basically behind the enemy lines when I got shot."

"Just admit you're a deserter," Hijikata said, his voice muffled by his sleeve. He definitely hadn't been on the verge of tears. He was seventeen, not seven.

The soldier scowled. "You're not a very pleasant kid, are you?"

"Stop calling me a kid," said Hijikata, petulantly. "You can't be much older than me."

The soldier shrugged. "I don't know how old I am. But it's experience that counts." He pinched Hijikata's cheek. "You're just a wee babe. Now, you're going to have to help me get this arrow out of my leg, and then I'll be out of your hair."

Hijikata slapped his hand away and looked down at the arrow. The main body of it had been broken away already, but it had sunk in deep enough that it didn't amount to much. Hijikata didn't know how he'd get a good enough grip on it to pull it out. The arrowhead itself must be still imbedded in his skin, not coming out the other side, because the soldier was resting his leg flat on the floor.

The soldier was still talking. "I doubt you've done this before, so just listen to me. Do you have any whiskey?"

Hijikata's expression soured. "No."

"Sake?"

"No."

"Fuck," the soldier said. "What is this, censorship?"

"It's hard to get luxuries like that when your country's fighting off insurgents," Hijikata said.

"You're telling me," the soldier sighed. "At least wash your hands. Actually, just get a bucket of water and bring it here."

Hijikata sat back on his heels. "Why do I have to help you? You're the one who broke into a shrine. How about you say a prayer instead?"

"I've been wondering the same thing," the soldier said. "You don't have any cute girls here, do you? Maybe a motherly weather lady type? No? Well." He held up his hands for Hijikata to see. They were crusted with dirt and blood, and shaking. The soldier had been acting so flippant that Hijikata hadn't noticed the dull look of terror in his eyes. "I tried to do it myself, but I kept passing out." He looked down at his leg. "I'd leave it until the rest heals, or at least until I can get Zura to look at it, but I'm afraid it'll get infected."

Hijikata got the bucket of water, taking extra care to wash his hands. He even wrapped a strip of cloth around his mouth. His breath was hot. He really, really didn't want to do this, but he couldn't just let the soldier die. Not after coming this far.

"Don't worry," the soldier said, watching Hijikata stare at his leg. "I'll walk you through it." He reached down and unlaced his sword/brace from his leg and handed the sheath to Hijikata. "If I die, take this and make a plow out of it or something, I don't care. Make a ring for the weather girl I'm sure you're hiding."

"What's your name?" Hijikata asked, staring at the sword in his hands.

The soldier grinned. "Put 'Sakata Gintoki,' on my gravestone, please. That's with the characters for hill, rice patty, silver, and time. And yours?"

"Hijikata Toshiro." He set the sword down. "I won't be putting it on your gravestone. I just don't want to tell the merchant I sell this sword to that I didn't even know the name of the man I took it off of. What do I do?"

Sakata handed him the cloth he had used to bind the sword with his leg, then held out his hands, his wrists pressed together. "First, tie my hands so I don't clobber you over the head mid-operation. You might want to sit on my good leg too." Hijikata did as he was told. Maybe this guy wasn't a real soldier, but a medic who happened to be injured. Surely no lay person would think like this. If he was a medic, then there was no shame in helping him.

"Okay, here's the tricky part," Sakata said. Hijikata tried not to notice how pale he was. "You can't just pull the arrow out. The Amanto put barbs on the head so if you try, you'll just tear out my entire leg. You have to push it through. It might help if you had something to elevate my leg."

Hijikata dragged over a crate and, as gently as he could, lifted up Sakata's ankle and set it on the edge. Sakata bit into his own arm to muffle the scream, which Hijikata was thankful for, though he wondered how Sakata could possibly manage to talk him through the process of pushing out the arrow. He wouldn't be able to keep this a secret for long if the whole village could hear screaming from the abandoned shrine.

Maybe it would be better if they found out. Adults might be better equipped to deal with this kind of situation. Hijikata tried to think. What would they do? They wouldn't just leave him here, that was for sure, but they couldn't help him either. The only reason Kondo's dojo was still allowed to exist was because the Bakufu was sure that Kondo was on their side, raising young samurai to serve the Shogun. If they helped a rebel, who knows what they would do. Definitely shut them down, probably execute Kondo.

Even Hijikata had heard of the Kansei Purge.

Kondo would probably be forced to put Sakata out of his misery, like the dog he was. That was one reason Hijikata was doing this. Kondo shouldn't ever have to go through that. Hijikata might be able to do it, but Kondo was too good. He wouldn't be able to live with himself.

Either that, or they would turn him over to some Bakufu official. Hijikata could picture it now. Kondo and the official, sitting cross-legged on the tatami. The official, maybe human, maybe Amanto, would be annoyed at Kondo for calling him all the way out here to deal with a minor issue like a dying rebel soldier. They wouldn't take him into custody, not some rankless cannon fodder like Sakata surely was. He couldn't be used as a hostage, so the official would probably draw his sword right there and behead him on the tatami, not even giving him the dignity of seppuku. Or maybe the official would be annoyed at how the war was going and want to take his frustration out. He'd request a separate room and drag Sakata there. He'd dig his foot into Sakata's bad leg, demanding information that Sakata didn't know. And then he'd kill him and give Kondo his head, nominally a token of appreciation but more potently a warning of what would happen if Kondo didn't remain loyal.

Yes, the best course of action would be to get the soldier out before anyone even realized. And if Hijikata had to learn surgery to protect Kondo, he would become the goddamn best surgeon in the universe. Besides, Kondo barely counted as an adult anyway. He was only a year older than Hijikata. He couldn't rely on him forever.

Hijikata's fingers hovered over what remained off the shaft. "So just...push?"

"No!" Sakata shouted, raising his head. He propped himself up on one elbow. "Okay, think about this, Gintoki." He closed his eyes. "Do you have a knife with you?"

Hijikata glanced at the sword. "...Sort of," he said.

"Right. So you need to enlarge the entry point."

Yeah, there wasn't anyway he could do that with a sword, unless Sakata was going for amputation. Hijikata said this.

"That was your knife?" Sakata said. "God. At least you had enough sense not to use it. Okay, new plan. Just grab the part that's sticking out and wiggle it around a little."

Gently, afraid that even grasping the shaft too hard would cause Sakata to pass out and leave him alone with no idea about what to do next, Hijikata brushed his fingers over the arrow. The skin around it was burnt black. Hijikata tried not to notice that it crackled as the arrow moved.

"You have use a little more force. Pretend I'm your girl. Ooh, aah, Hijikata-chan, I can barely feel it, harder, Hiji—Oh, fuck, not that hard. You're going to dislodge the arrowhead, and then where will I be? In a grave, probably. Okay, okay, this is fine. It's moving fine?"

The man was babbling. It was annoying, but Hijikata didn't blame him. At least he was staying awake. "Yeah, it's moving."

"Right. You can stop now. No, don't let go." Sakata gulped. "That means it's not embedded in bone, so you can...you can push it out now." He laid back and closed his eyes. "Just do it quick. If there's an artery or something in the way, there's nothing I can teach you."

Hijikata didn't want to look at his face, but he did anyway. He was much too pale, probably fear in conjunction with blood loss. He was shaking.

"Hurry up," he said. "Wait, no, stop. If the arrowhead comes out with the shaft, wrap one of those bandages around my leg as soon as you can. If it doesn't, well. Thank you."

"Keep talking to me," Hijikata said, taking hold of the arrow. "You have to stay awake, okay? Sakata sounds like a farmer's name. Are you a farmer?" He started to push down on the arrow. Sakata jolted, and Hijikata was suddenly glad he had listened to his advice and sat on his leg. He was too strong, even injured like this.

"No, not a farmer," Sakata said, panting. "I don't know the first thing about farming. There just happened to be a rice field around when I chose it. Lots of rice fields in Japan, aren't there?" He choked as Hijikata applied more force. His fingers scrabbled against the floor. "Someone said, 'Gintoki, there's a rice field on a hill! That's what you should name yourself,' and like a fool, I went along with it. Most people call me Gintoki. Actually, you're the only person to call me Sakata in years and years. Maybe in forever. You know, I don't know if anyone knows my family name."

Hijikata could see the tip of the arrowhead as it poked through the thin layer of skin, an alien object tearing through the body. By now, the shaft was only centimeters long, barely enough to push on. If it didn't come out with the arrowhead, Sakata was just going to have to figure out how to live with a dirty arrow stuck horizontally through his leg.

He pressed the last centimeter down, and the arrowhead pierced through the skin. Sakata turned his head and vomited.

Hijikata pinched his fingers around the tip, trying to dig his nails into the metal. It was slippery with blood and other viscera Hijikata didn't want to identify. With his other hand he kept on pushing the shaft, down, down until his finger slipped inside the wound. It reminded Hijikata of Sougo licking the last of his meal off his fingers. Blood pulsed over his skin, like the wound was trying to swallow him.

Hijikata wanted to follow Sakata's lead and throw up. But he held his breath and kept tugging at the arrow, watching as it widened and started to tear a bigger and bigger hole in Sakata's leg, until it abruptly tapered off and the wooden shaft started to poke out the other side. He wrapped his fingers around it and tugged. It slid out fairly smoothly.

He laid the arrow on the ground next to the sword and, without looking to Sakata for any instruction, wrapped a bandage tight around his leg. Then he dunked his hands in the bucket of water and scrubbed them until the water was pink and his hands were free of blood. It was only then that he had the courage to look over and see if his patient was still alive.

Sakata was clearly passed out, but the gentle rise and fall of his chest betrayed life. Hijikata let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Carefully, making sure not to move his leg, which he decided to keep elevated, he shifted Sakata away from the pool of vomit. He wished he could move him to another part of the shrine altogether, but he was willing to admit he wasn't strong enough to lift him and dragging him would only aggravate the injury.

He dumped the bucket of bloody water outside. He left the bandages there, in case Sakata woke up and wanted to change them. He'd forgive one more night here; he doubted Sakata would even be conscious for a few hours, and all Hijikata's effort would be wasted if he decided to trek through the woods on that leg in the middle of the night.

At dinner that night, Hijikata stared at his rice and tried not to think about Sakata. He wasn't a stranger to blood, by no means, but it was different than cutting someone down with a quick slash of a sword. It was prolonging the slash for an hour, two hours, feeling the skin rip under your hands.

"How old do you have to be to fight in the war?" Hijikata asked Kondo. Sakata hadn't really answered, but Hijikata refused to believe he was more than twenty, and that was probably much too high a guess.

Kondo put down his chopsticks. He ate like a gorilla, shoveling the rice into his mouth like it was a competition. A few grains were stuck to his chin. "Toshi," he said solemnly. "Don't."

Hijikata frowned. "I don't want to. I was just—"

"Don't listen to him," said Sougo. "You definitely should go off and die already, you bastard. Don't even bother taking a sword with you."

"Sougo," Kondo chastised, then turned back towards Hijikata. "I don't know, for sure, but there are probably a lot of boys no older than you dying out there." He emphasized dying, like he really had to drive home the point that even considering entering the war was a stupid, stupid thing. He reached over and ruffled Sougo's hair. "And maybe a few about your age."

Sougo pushed Kondo's hand away. "They're idiots," he said. "Why would you willingly choose to die?"

"Well," Kondo said reluctantly, like he didn't even want to give the boys a hint of a reason to run off and join the army, "They probably have something they want to protect, just like us." He mulled this thought over for a moment, chewing. Kondo firmly believed that chewing every morsel properly was the secret to good health. He just often forgot to apply the rule to himself. "It's just too bad they're protecting the wrong thing."


	2. and the thunder of horses plunging,

**A/N: just an fyi, this is also posted on AO3, under the same name, if anyone would prefer to read this over there (I'm also posting chapters like a week earlier than on ffn)**

 **Full chapter title is "and the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:"**

* * *

Hijikata went back to the shrine the next morning, armed with two bowls of rice. He felt like a little kid trying to keep a secret pet.

Sakata must have woken up sometime during the night, because he wasn't lying where Hijikata had left him, but on top of a pile of hay that had been shoved in the back of the shrine probably twenty years ago. No one thought of this place as a temple to the gods anymore. His bandages were soaked with blood and, when Hijikata got closer, he noticed Sakata's face was red with fever.

He fetched a cool rag and pressed it against Sakata's forehead. Mitsuba had fevers a lot, but she always said they weren't worth buying medicine for. Better to just sweat them out.

While he was at it, Hijikata unwrapped the bandages around his leg and checked the wound for any sign of infection. It smelled like blood, but not so much like death, which must mean it was healing. So he changed the bandages and, with nothing left to do, stood up to leave.

Sakata grabbed his arm. "Zura," he said, throat voice raspy. "Wait."

Hijikata resisted his impulse to kick him away and, with a sigh, sat down. "My name's not Zura, you know," he said, though he doubted Sakata understood him.

"Are you ever going to get sick of that catchphrase?" Sakata said, with a forced chuckle. His eyes were glazed over, unfocused. "Takasugi came too fucking late, again. He's always...always with the 'Gintoki, take the lead, glory, honor, blah blah blah' and then he shows up after everything's done and it's 'Good job Takasugi!'" He clutched weakly at Hijikata's sleeve. "Are you alright? I know Tatsuma's got to be, I heard his goddamn laugh five miles out."

Hijikata frowned. "I guess," he said. Sakata didn't even seem to hear him.

"Did we win?" he asked, twisting the fabric of Hijikata's sleeve in his fist. "You're right, Zura. We can't keep losing. There's not going to be—" Hijikata helped Sakata sit up, his body wracked with coughs. This was the kind of sickness Hijikata knew. It would pass, soon enough.

"Just go to sleep," Hijikata said, and Sakata must have heard that, at least, because he rolled his eyes and tugged gently on the end of his ponytail.

"You go to sleep, stupid wig," he said, and immediately started snoring, going limp in Hijikata's hands.

Hijikata sighed and lowered him back down. He left the rice on the ground. His fever would probably break sometime today, and then he could force Sakata out once and for all.

Just for a moment, as walked past the gate, Hijikata wondered what anyone was supposed to do if the ones you wanted to protect were in a war.


	3. arrogant, in black armor,

Sakata wasn't in the shrine when Hijikata went back the next evening, another plate of rice balls in hand. Mitsuba had begun to make extra and Sougo had claimed attempting to skewer Hijikata while he was taking a bath was just a way to help him burn off the extra calories. He had been so preoccupied chasing Sougo out, then apologizing to Mitsuba for running around her house half-naked, that he hadn't had time to check on Sakata this morning.

He wasn't in any of the surrounding grounds either. Hijikata sat on the steps and started to eat the rice balls himself. Sakata must have been true to his word and snuck away as soon as his fever had broken. Somehow, this was disappointing. He had imagined himself seeing Sakata off.

He couldn't have been able to walk properly yet, if he could even stand up. He must have taken Hijikata's threat pretty seriously if he decided the risk of walking on a heavily injured leg through a warzone was safer than Hijikata. The thought gave him less satisfaction than he had hoped it would.

"Oi, Hijikata-kun," someone shouted. "Hijikata-kun!"

Hijikata jumped to his feet, the rice balls rolling out of his lap and onto the ground. Who was calling for him? That voice wasn't Kondo's, and no one else would be looking for him at this hour. No one else except—

Hijikata turned towards the direction of the forest that bordered the town. And there, outlined against the trees, was the figure of the soldier, both arms outstretched and waving at him. As he got closer, Hijikata could see that he held the body of a dead rabbit in one hand. The other was clutched around the hilt of his scabbard, which he was using as a walking stick.

"There you are," Sakata shouted. It was taking him a laboriously long time to walk across the shrine grounds. "I thought you had forgotten about me." He tossed Hijikata the rabbit.

Hijikata scrambled to catch it, then held it awkwardly cradled in his arms. He had never been much of a hunter. "I see you're feeling better," he said, trying not to look at the creature.

Sakata was laboriously collecting a small pyramid of sticks. Everytime he bent down, he pushed his bad leg behind him like he was about to give a sweeping bow, putting all of his weight on his good leg without bending the bad one. "Yeah," he said. "Thank you." The gratitude seemed genuine enough, if a little memorized, like a kid thanking his mom for dinner. He pointed at the rabbit. "Can you skin that for me?"

"Huh?" Hijikata looked down at it. "I don't have I knife."

"If you've never done it before, you could just say so," Sakata said, and start rummaging in his pockets. After a second, he produced a small piece of flint and a what looked like a broken blade of a sword. He grabbed the rabbit out of Hijikata's hands and handed him the flint and steel. "Surely you can light a fire?"

Hijikata came to his senses then. They were far enough away that no one would see a fire and become curious, and Hijikata had to trust a soldier to choose firewood that wouldn't produce smoke. But the real issue was that Sakata was still here.

"I told you to leave," Hijikata said.

"Yeah, yeah." Sakata had settled down to sit on the bottom two steps of shrine. He stretched the rabbit out on his good leg. "I tried." He pinched the back of the rabbit's neck and then punctured the hide with a small stick. "See, it's so thin, you don't need a knife. That's how I knew you were just a city boy."

He stuck two fingers into the opening and slowly began working it apart, peeling off the skin. "But I can't...I couldn't make it very far. I thought, after you didn't come and feed me, I might as well take off, but damn if it's not exhausting hopping through the forest on one leg. So I set a trap for Thumper here and took a nap." Now he was working the rabbit's legs out from the confines of its own skin. "Are you going to light that fire?"

Hijikata looked at the pieces of flint and steel in his hands. He didn't see in harm in it, and it looked like Sakata was prepared to share the meal. He grabbed the bamboo wrapping his rice balls had been in and set it on top of the kindling Sakata had gathered. Without any fire cloth, the bamboo should work fine.

"And," Sakata continued. "Since you had your panties all in a twist about it, I went and checked—"

"What are panties?" Hijikata interrupted. He immediately regretted it.

A grin slowly spread across Sakata's face. "You don't know what panties are?" He burst into delighted laughter, throwing his head back with the force of it. "Oh, that's great! I didn't know I was talking to a—" He cupped his hands around his chest and put on a falsetto, "—cherry boy."

Hijikata blushed furiously. It served him right for displaying ignorance in front of someone like Sakata.

He was still laughing. "Hell, what are you?" He wiped tears out of the corners of his eyes. "Where are you from, kid."

"What's it to you?" Hijikata couldn't look at him. He hated people laughing at him. Instead he focused on lighting the fire, striking flint against steel over and over until a spark finally landed on the bamboo paper. It started smoking immediately. Hijikata took it and carefully put it under the teepee of firewood, where it would hopefully set some of that alight too.

"I keep on misjudging you," Sakata said. "When you first showed up I thought you were some awkward farm boy playing swords, and when you came back I figured you must be some rich kid who can waste time on a whim. You carry that practice sword with enough confidence that I figured you might belong to a temple school with a dojo attached, but since you don't know how to skin a rabbit, you must be sheltered. So then I thought you were the youngest son of some daimyo sent out to a dojo in the boonies to build character, but they give you the easy jobs anyway because they're scared of your rank. Which would explain how much free time you seem to have." Sakata snapped the furry feet off the rabbit and began working on pulling off the head. He did it all without even looking, practiced to the point of instinct. "But you don't know what panties are? You haven't been close to a city in your entire life, have you?"

"Says the guy butchering a rabbit," Hijikata said. He decided to be nice, for the sake of getting food, and begin searching for two forked sticks. "You're not going to be able to convince me you're some high class young lord who ended up in the war on accident."

"Don't you know fur is all the rage in the city?" Sakata took the rabbit skin and threw it at Hijikata's face. Hijikata batted it away. "No, no, I'm not a young lord, but I've at least been to Kyoto. C'mon, tell me. What the hell are you?"

"I'm enrolled in a dojo," Hijikata said.

Sakata groaned. "Well, that much is painfully obvious. Do you have rich parents? Are you the son of the headmaster?"

"No," Hijikata said, shoving the two sticks he found on either side of the fire, perhaps with more force than was strictly necessary. "I'm the illegitimate son of a farmer." He didn't look at Sakata's face, but he knew what to expect. Everyone was the same. A mixture of pity and disgust, and then, after they had thought about it, jealousy and hate.

"Pretty nice farmer," Sakata said, "to give his bastard to a dojo." He had begun the process of gutting the rabbit, shoving two fingers into the top of the chest cavity and pulling down.

"No," Hijikata said. "I was a dojo challenger."

Sakata started laughing again. God, that was annoying. People were supposed to be respectful to someone actively in the process of saving their life. "What's so funny?" Hijikata demanded, bristling.

"Nothing, nothing," Sakata giggled. "Just, aren't dojo challengers supposed to be good?"

Hijikata threw a stick at him. "I am good!"

"Sure," Sakata said, and skewered the skinned rabbit on the stick. Carefully, he stood up and hobbled over to the fire, balancing the skewered rabbit over the two forked sticks Hijikata had set up. He settled down next to Hijikata, keeping his bad leg stretched out.

"What about you?" Hijikata asked, watching as Sakata massaged his upper thigh.

"What about me?"

"Where are you from?"

Sakata frowned. "That's none of your business."

Hijikata's fingers dug into his palms as he resisted the urge to clobber him over the head. "I just told you all about myself! And I'm not the suspicious one! The least you should be doing is telling me who you are." Not that it should be anything unexpected; this was more on principle than anything else. Sakata had already said he wasn't a farmer, despite having a name as common as a rice field on a hill. He had also said he had chosen the name for himself. He was probably a younger son of a peasant, maybe a fisherman, someone so poor they couldn't afford their own land, who had set off to seek his fortune in war.

"An annoying one, aren't you?" Sakata turned the skewer. "I guess I was a part of a dojo too. Let me tell you, dojo challengers are super annoying. They'd start out all, 'I don't want fight smallfry like you! Where is the headmaster!' but then they'd cry when I kicked their asses." He shook his head. "They're sorta creepy too. Like stalkers. Actually, I can predict it already. When you grow up you're going to be a stalker."

That was an unexpected response.

"I am not," Hijikata said. "What school was it? I mean, what style did the dojo teach?"

"Style?" Sakata hummed and kept rotating the skewer. The smell of roasting meat filled the air. Hijikata's mouth watered. "Hm, I don't know. Doki-doki sutairu?" He held up a peace sign and winked. "Anyway, as I was saying before you so rudely told me you don't know what panties are, since you seemed so worried, I checked to see how close the front is. And there was no need for you to bawl your eyes out about it. It's at least fifteen miles away, probably more."

"How'd you figure that out?" Hijikata asked, skeptical.

"It's like this is your first time outside," Sakata sighed. He pointed towards the forest. "Look at that. Those are trees, Hijikata-kun. And that, that up there, that's the sky."

Hijikata planted his fist into the crown of Sakata's head. "Just tell me." The only way Hijikata could think to tell was to keep walking until you started being shot at, and he doubted Sakata had walked fifteen miles and back on that leg. Even a healthy person couldn't do that in less than a day.

Sakata rubbed the back of his head and pouted. "You're too cruel. After I put all that work I put in, is this what I deserve? Aah, no, put down your fist, I'm telling you, I'm telling you. It's the animals." He pointed at the rabbit. "They're all normal. Bunnies and shit. If the war was close, these guys would have all fled by now, and the ones that hadn't would have already been hunted down by the auxiliary parties. The only animals left would be like, foxes and crows. Scavengers." He beamed at Hijikata. "And this is the brain you were trying to destroy."

While this was good news, even if Hijikata didn't entirely trust its source nor the logic behind it, there was something else gnawing at him. How had Sakata even made it to the forest on that leg? He should still be bedridden. He shouldn't even be able to stand up.

"Show me your leg," Hijikata said.

Sakata gave him a confused smile. "Huh?"

"Show me your leg," Hijikata said, and stood up.

Sakata wilted under his stare. "I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled. "What leg? I don't have a leg."

Hijikata stepped forward, bent down, and pulled up the hem of Sakata's pants, all before Sakata could schooch away. It was a mess. After he had bled through the bandages Hijikata had wrapped around his leg, Sakata hadn't taken them off, but had merely wrapped an extra layer on top of them. And then another one. And another one. The result was a bloody mess of disintegrating fabric, rotten with congealed blood. Hijikata had attributed the smell to the rabbit, but as he stared, shocked, it almost overwhelmed him. He gagged and looked away.

"You're a fucking idiot," he said. "Why didn't you just stay put?"

"I didn't think you would come back," Sakata said. He was staring at his hands. "And...and...I mean...I do want to get back to them. You keep telling me to leave, but it's not like I want to stay." He rubbed the back of his head and nodded in a sort-of bow. "I'm sorry."

Hijikata's fingers hovered over Sakata's leg. It looked more like the remains of something than an actual leg, like the bloody imprint left after surgery, or the pile of rabbit guts Sakata had left on the shrine's stairs. He didn't know where to start. He didn't know if he should start, or if helping Sakata was a lost cause.

"Don't worry about it," Sakata said, leaned back and looking up at the sky. "I'll take care of it."

"Shut up," Hijikata said through gritted teeth. "I left you to take care of it before, and look how you ended up." He found the fraying edge on a bandages and started to peel it away. Sakata grabbed his arm and squeezed it, hard. His nails dug into Hijikata's skin.

"Hell," he panted a few seconds later, letting Hijikata go. "Oh, gods, that hurt like hell."

"You don't get to say that anymore," Hijikata said, but he let go of the bandage. "Not after you spent all day walking on it without any complaint." It looked like a lot of the blood had dried to the bandage, which in turn had glued itself to Sakata's skin.

"I complained plenty," Sakata said. "You just weren't around to hear it. Do you want me to make up for lost time? Because I can always—Oh, crap, my dinner!" He stretched over and pulled the rabbit off the fire. Now that Hijikata was paying attention to it, he could smell the faint acridity of burning meat.

Sakata stared at the darkened skin with more pain that he had looking at his leg. Hijikata rolled his eyes and sat back on his heels. If he was acting like this, it probably wasn't as bad as it looked. "What do I do?" Hijikata asked.

Sakata was pulling a haunch of the rabbit. "How should I know?" he said around a mouthful. "Damn, it is burnt."

"You're the one who told me how to get an arrow out of someone's leg," Hijikata said. "I assume you'd also know something as simple as taking off gauze."

He shrugged. "I'm no medic. Listen. There are two types of injuries, see? There's surgery, which anyone can do, and then there's the floo-floo crap, which requires stuff like 'a mother's touch' or 'caring.'" He gestured down at his leg. "This is type two. I don't care about it. Just let me walk it off, it'll be fine. Tenacity is my defining character trait."

"It's going to get infected."

"You're going to get infected," Sakata retorted. Goddammit, that was clever. Sakata had really gotten him this time.

Hijikata stood up. "C'mon, we're going to the river." It would honestly serve Sakata right if he died horribly of a gangrenous leg, but Hijikata was too far in to let that happen. Someone would find his body eventually, and it would be obvious that he had received some type of medical care before he died, and Mitsuba was the only one in a fifty mile radius who just had medical supplies lying about. It wouldn't take much from there for Sougo to conveniently recall that Hijikata had kept on sneaking out with extra food around this time, and it could only get worse from there. No, even if Sakata was going to die, he wasn't going to do it with Mitsbua's bandages on him.

He looped Sakata's arm around his shoulders and helped in upright. Going to the river with him should be alright. No one would be hanging around the river at this hour. It would definitely be fine. Definitely.

Sakata complained at first, but that soon tapered off into a single-minded focus on keeping his grip on the rabbit. When they got to the river, he lowered himself to the bank and immediately set back to work on devouring it. Thankfully, no one else was there.

"Put your leg in," Hijikata said, and started to shrug off his yukata.

"Whoa, whoa, hold up, Hijikata-kun," Sakata said, grinning nervously. "You're a nice guy and everything—well, no, you're not a nice guy, you're sort of an asshole—but I really don't feel that way about you, okay? I'm sorry, but I just—"

Hijikata kicked him. "I don't want to get it wet, pervert." He stepped into the river, shivering at the chill. Hopefully this was so idiotic he wouldn't catch a cold. Sakata reluctantly put dipped his leg in.

The water turned brown after touching his leg. But it was much easier to peel off the bandages, and Sakata was too busy pulling apart his rabbit to raise too much of a fuss about the pain, like a baby with a bottle.

After Hijikata had finally peeled off the last layer of old bandages, he lifted Sakata's leg out of the water and stared at it. It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. It still didn't look like he should be walking on it, but it didn't look like it should be amputated either. He started to rewrap it, pulling the bandages tight around his leg.

"Why do you keep doing this?" Sakata asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Hijikata wasn't sure if had been meant to hear, but he answered anyway. "If you were answering dojo challengers, you must have been the heir of the teacher there." He tied off the end of the bandage and stood up, then offered Sakata a hand. "I expect a remuneration in full, rich kid."

Sakata laughed and took his hand. "If I can find the money, you'll be the first to hear me bragging."


	4. disdaining the reins,

**Full chapter title: disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers**

* * *

Hijikata sneezed.

"Someone's talking about you behind your back, Hijikata," Sougo said, in between mouthfuls of natto and rice.

"Do you have a cold?" Mitsuba asked, all concern. She put a hand to his forehead. "You do seem a little hot. Did you sleep with the door open?"

"Don't be silly, big sis, idiots don't catch colds," Sougo said. After a moment's hesitation, he added, "That must be why you catch so many."

Hijikata threw a chopstick at him. "You're such a suck-up."

"A cold?" Kondo boomed. He always seemed too loud at meals. Everything that made him a natural teacher in the dojo made him see out of place everywhere else.

"It's nothing," Hijikata said quickly.

"Your health is important," Kondo said. "Stay home from the dojo today."

Sougo giggled. "Oh no, you're going to be another day behind your senpai."

Mitsuba smiled at him. "Listen to him. You should take a day off whenever you get an opportunity. You work too hard, Hijikata." She started to clean the table, picking up Sougo's plates. "Just go back to bed. I can bring you some tea."

Hijikata held up his hands. "No, I'm really fine. Kondo, I really shouldn't take a break from—"

"Nonsense," Kondo said, passing Mitsuba his plate. "If you feel that great, you should spend your day helping Mitsuba around the house."

Hijikata stood up. If they really weren't going to let him train, he definitely shouldn't spend time with her. What if she caught his cold? Were they all idiots? "Absolutely not," he said, and walked out the door.

"Idioooot!" Sougo called after him. Hijikata ignored it and traced the familiar path to the shrine.

Sakata wasn't around when he arrived. Hijikata had to hope he hadn't been an idiot and gone hunting again. The fire had burned down to a few smoldering embers. He probably was still asleep, if he hadn't bothered to add a few more logs. It wouldn't have surprised Hijikata in the least, though the sun had risen hours ago. Sakata seemed like the type of lazy bastard that didn't wake up until noon.

Hijikata took his practice sword from his belt and started practicing, just like he had before he found Sakata, raising the sword above his head and bringing it down with in a decisive swing, then moving on to practice more specific kendo steps.

Sakata limped out of the shrine a few hours later, rubbing at his eyes. "Oh," he said, "it's just you. And here I thought all the armies of the Shogun were outside my door."

Hijikata paused, suspicions confirmed, and lowered his sword. "It took you long enough to wake up," he said. "The Shogun's armies would have gotten bored and left."

"How could anyone sleep, with all that grunting outside?" Sakata complained. He sat down on the steps and rested his head in his hands. "Are you trying to send me a message? You'll be on the receiving end of this 'argh!' if you don't get out soon?"

Hijikata turned away and continued went back to practicing. "This is what I did here before you trespassed," he said, breathing heavily. "I'm not going to stop because of you."

Sakata watched him for about ten minutes before throwing his hands back. "I'm bored," he whined.

"I don't care."

Sakata pouted for a second, then broke out into a wide grin. "I have an idea! Let's spar!"

"No."

"Why not?" Sakata said, dragging out every syllable. "Are you scared you'll lose?"

Hijikata didn't even look away from his exercises. "No. You'll tear open your wound, and then I'll have to be the one to take care of it. If you want to spar, you have to heal first."

"Come on. It's a shared interest. You like to practice fighting, I fight for a living, we've got a common—"

"No."

Sakata sighed loudly and settled back down. "You're really no fun at all."

Hijikata got three more minutes of quiet before Sakata interrupted with, "What the hell is that? What are you doing?"

Hijikata put his sword down and leaned on it. This was even worse than having Sougo around. If anything, Sougo's routine attempts on his life helped him train, while Sakata was just hindering him. "Can you not shut up? Is your brain directly connected to your mouth? Do you have to voice every fleeting thought that comes into your head?"

"I've only said one thing!" Sakata protested. "Besides, me talking can only help you. It's not like everyone shuts up during a real fight." He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and let out a high-pitched scream.

Hijikata clapped his hands over his ears. "Stop it! What are you doing?"

Sakata snapped his mouth shut. "Helping you," he said testily. "That's what a battle will sound like, if you ever get into a real one. Now go on, start doing your hwuah-hwuah's again."

"I've been in real fights," Hijikata pointed out. "I told you, I was a dojo challenger. A successful dojo challenger."

Sakata rolled his eyes. "I don't believe you. You couldn't see that weird thing you were doing just now. Are you trying to cut an ant in half or something?" He swung his arms around. "Broad movements! Broad!"

Hijikata sighed. "I'm trying to figure out a counter for one of my senpai's attacks," he said. He did a lackadaisical imitation of Sougo's finishing attack. He had seen in a thousand times, and was getting sick of it. It was one thing if Sougo beat him; it was another if he did it the same way every time. That was just embarrassing.

Sakata stood up. "That's easy. Just—"

"Sit down."

"No," Sakata said. "You can't make me. I'm bored, and I'm going to help you." He walked over, taking exaggerated care with each step, and took Hijikata's practice sword. He swung it around a few times, getting a feel for the weight of it, then went into a complicated move that would perfectly counter Sougo's, if only Hijikata hadn't already thought of it.

Hijikata yanked his sword out of Sakata's hands. "That won't work," he said. "I already tried it. He's too short."

"Just lower your swing."

"He's really short."

Sakata grinned and patted Hijikata's shoulder in what seemed to be an attempt at solidarity. "It's okay," he said, his voice serious for the first time since Hijikata pulled an arrow out of his leg. "I've lost matches to really short people too. Just one, mind you. Maybe two or three. I don't know, it's not like _I_ keep count. But I understand that it's hard to wrap your head around, it took me awhile, but they're really people, just like us. You really just have to lower your swing."

"No," Hijikata insisted, ignoring Sakata's obvious height complex. "It won't work. He's really, really short." He gestured around his hip. "Really short."

"Your senpai is?" Sakata's grin widened. "Hey, Hijikata-kun. Um, how do I say this, uh…" He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially in Hijikata's ear, "Does his voice, uh, still crack or—" He stopped and started laughing at his own joke. "Does he have a grade-school backpack? Have you given him the Talk yet? I mean, please tell me I'm not teaching you how to defeat a five year old."

"He's not five!" Hijikata said, flushing up to his ears. He looked at his feet. "He's eleven."

Sakata doubled over. "Oh gods, he's eleven? The big, strong, experienced-with-real-fights, dojo challenger Hijikata-kun is training to beat an eleven year old?"

"He's really good," Hijikata said, rubbing his toes in the dirt. Fascinating things, feet. It was just that everyone in this town knew how good Sougo was. He had never felt much shame being beaten before, not since he first came here and everyone congratulated him for not going down on the first hit.

Sakata was still laughing when he took the sword out of Hijikata's hands. "Okay," he said, holding the sword up. "Situation: A _really_ good eleven year old has confronted you." He lowered it slightly, so it reflected the typical starting point in a kendo match. "Oi, kid, I bet you don't even have hair down there yet. You're a hundred years too early to beat me." He stepped forward, and very slowly, though Hijikata couldn't tell if it was to patronizingly show him each step or just because of his leg, he twisted around in a move that yes, would be able to take out an eleven year old.

"I don't know what's worse," Hijikata said. "Me wanting to beat up an eleven year old, or you having prepared moves for it." He mimicked Sakata's stance. "Like this?"

"Definitely you. I have a valid reason. There are Amanto of every shape and size. Eleven year olds, twelve year olds, everything in between. I could destroy any kid." Sakata tossed Hijikata his sword and picked up a stick of about sword length. "Including you."

"Yeah?" Hijikata said, taking a starting position.

Sakata copied him. "Come on, see if you can take the great—"

Hijikata lunged forward and lightly tapped the side of Sakata's knee. "Ippon."

Sakata went down like a bag of rocks. He didn't even attempt to catch himself, but landed face down in the dirt.

Hijikata squatted down next to him. "I told you so."

Sakata didn't respond. Hijikata poked him with the hilt of the sword. "Sakata-kun?"

No response.

Hijikata turned Sakata's head so he wasn't getting a mouthful of dirt and gently slapped his cheek. Sakata moaned and batted his hand away.

"I'm dead," he said. "It's too late for me. Save yourself."

Hijikata sighed. "I told you this would happen. C'mon, stand up."

"Did you call me Sakata?" Sakata mummered into the ground.

"You're just trying to distract me."

"No, I'm not. Why would I do that? That's silly. The point is you called me Sakata-kun."

"So what?" Hijikata asked. "That's your name, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but no one calls me that," Sakata said. "It's disgusting. Like, 'My father was Sakata-kun,' except that he wasn't." He opened one eye. It was watery. "Just call me Gintoki."

Hijikata frowned. "That's a lot more disgusting than Sakata."

"Are you embarrassed, Hijikata-kun? Is this the first time anyone's let you call them by their given name?" Sakata smiled. "'A-Ah, G-Gin-chan, w-would you please go out with me!' Is that the type of thing you're thinking?"

"If you're so confident, why are you calling me Hijikata?"

"Oh, that." Sakata's smile turned apologetic. "I forgot your given name."

"You're awful," Hijikata said, and grabbed him by the armpits, dragging him back to the shrine stairs. Saka—Gintoki's legs bumped uselessly on the ground.

"So you're just not going to tell me?" Gintoki complained as Hijikata dropped him back to the ground and pulled up his pant leg.

"No," Hijikata said. He carefully unwrapped the bandages, careful not to tear at the skin. It wasn't as bad as it had been yesterday. In fact, it looked like it was healing nicely, though he was no doctor. His knee however...that probably needed stitches, or something to suture it together, and Hijikata had nothing of the sort. The closest thing might be sticking it in the fire to cauterize it, and that didn't seem like something to approach with the casual ignorance they had given to surgery. He decided not to mention it and rewrapped it with clean bandages.

Gintoki had drawn a stick figure in the dirt. As Hijikata watched, he added two giant circles to its chest. "This," Gintoki proclaimed, "is a woman."

Hijikata crossed his legs and leaned an arm on one knee. "You," he said, "are a pervert."

"Shut up, I'm teaching you something," Gintoki said. "This is a woman, okay? A lovely lady who'll ask you, 'Do you want dinner? A bath? Or perhaps, me?' every night when you get home. Got it?"

"Fine," Hijikata said. "That's a woman."

"Thank you." Gintoki drew a triangle between the stick-woman's legs. "These are panties."

Hijikata turned bright red. "You really are a pervert," he said. "I was joking but you really are."

Gintoki frowned. "What are you talki—Oh, shit, no!" He scrubbed out the stick figure with a sweep of his hand. "No! Not that! God, you're a sicko!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you!" Gintoki slapped a hand to his forehead. "Panties are what foreign women wear under their clothes, okay? It has nothing to do with _that_. Well, no, it's what covers that, so actually it has a lot to do with that. But you're a freak, okay? A real sicko. You shouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of a—"

"You're the freak! How do you know this?" Hijikata was still blushing, but thankfully Gintoki was too.

"I'm telling you, it's because I've been to the city!" Gin ran his hand down his face. "Women out in the countryside can't afford them, so they just wear koshimaki, but the courtesans in Kyoto and—"

"You know this because you visit _prostitutes_?" Hijikata pointed an accusing finger at Gintoki. "And you dare call me the pervert?"

"Courtesans!" Gintoki repeated. "Not prostitutes, courtesans! And," he tapped his chin, "they're friendly ladies. I couldn't just ignore them."

Hijikata threw the roll of gauze at him. "I can't believe it," he said. "You're twelve years old."

"So that's why you won't fight me? Because I'm outside your target range?" Gintoki leaned to one side, dodging the stick Hijikata had picked up and thrown at him. "It seems to me you're the twelve year old. It's a natural part of life to—"

Hijikata stood up. "Go die already, won't you?"

"You're blushing! How cute!"

"You're blushing too!"

"Am not!"

"You are too!" Hijikata picked his practice sword off the ground and starting walking away. "I'm leaving."

"Wait, Hijikata-kun! You didn't bring me anything to eat!"

"Starve, for all I care," Hijikata called back, breaking out into a run.

Despite himself, he was still smiling when he got back to the house.


	5. they cry unto the night their battlename

It was already dark when Hijikata next found the time to visit Gintoki (yes, that name did seem a lot more natural, if only because the word 'silver' fit him a lot better than 'rice'). He was sleeping, hidden deep within the shrine, in the rooms where only the god was supposed to reside.

He had no futon to lay on, or even a blanket to cover himself up with. It was discomforting to see, and though Hijikata knew that it should have been obvious that Gintoki didn't have vanities like bedding, he hadn't thought about it.

Hijikata set the plate of food down by his head and sat down, cross-legged, on the tatami. Next time, he would have to remember to sneak out a blanket. He would probably end up giving his own.

Gintoki turned over in his sleep. His face was scrunched up, eyebrows doing their best to turn into a uni-brow, teeth grinding against teeth. He flung his arm across his chest and clutched at the shirt, just above his heart.

"S'rry," he muttered.

At first, Hijikata thought Gintoki had woken up. But his eyes were still closed, his breathing slow and shallow.

"It's okay," he whispered, and shrugged off his haori. He laid it over Gintoki's shoulders. Gin immediately began to snuggle into it, and he began snoring gently.

Hijikata didn't return for a few days after that.


	6. i moan in sleep when i hear afar

Gintoki was carefully stretching on the grass. He smiled and waved Hijikata over.

"I'm going to win today," he said, leaning over sideways to touch his toes. His legs were laid out, spread-eagled, and if Hijikata hadn't known better, he would have called Gintoki perfectly healthy. "Are those sour plums?"

Hijikata handed over the food and sat down cross-legged across from Gin. "Why do you have this obsession with fighting me?" he asked. He hadn't let this go from the very first day Hijikata had decided to keep practicing here.

"I'm bored," Gintoki said, bluntly. "I'm not going to bother dragging myself out to the forest if you're bringing me food, there's no _JUMP_ or anything to read out here, and I can only spend so long counting the blades of grass." He popped the last plum into his mouth. Hijikata hadn't even seen him eat the first five.

"You can read?" Hijikata ignored Gintoki's cry of indignation. "Well, entertaining you isn't my job. Maybe," he added, "if you find something that doesn't involve you running around with sharp objects and putting weight on your leg, than I'll help—Hey!"

Gin had dramatically thrown himself back into the grass and started snoring. "Boring!" he shouted to the sky. "Super boring!" He rolled onto his stomach. "I'm going to die of boredom before I heal enough to make you happy, and then when I go back to the front, I'm going to die again because I won't remember how to hold a sword."

Hijkata tore up wilting grass and sprinkled it in Gintoki's hair. He had been trying not to think about Gintoki going back, even though he reminded him every day that he had to leave soon. It just...It was _frustrating_. It seemed like such a waste to expend all this effort on keeping one man alive, just to get him well enough that he could go die somewhere else. And he would die, Hijikata knew, because everyone on this war died. There were never any stories of men coming home, and no one had expected there to be.

But Gintoki didn't have a chance. Even if he made a full recovery, and the chances of that were low, his muscles would be weakened from the scarring. And, if he went back, he'd be exposed to all the terrible conditions war brings. It'd get infected as soon as he set foot in camp.

He wanted to say, _You don't have to go. Kondo would take you in, if you threw away your sword and armor and forgot you ever were a soldier,_ but if Gintoki was the kind of man who would agree to that, Hijikata wouldn't be trying to protect him.

Besides, Gintoki was still prattling on. "And it was me who taught you how to take care of it, right? A student shouldn't be acting like they know so much more than their teacher. You haven't learned it yet, but my leg is perfectly fine! Fine, I say!" He slapped his thigh in demonstration, and Hijikata watched as he tried to hide his gasp of pain with a contented hum. "Aahhmm, see? Fit as Tagame Gengoroh. If you're so worried about it, all you have to do is not hit it. And, don't you sort of owe me for helping you beat up that kid?"

Hijikata had been able to best Sougo once because of Gintoki's help. It hadn't lasted long, because Sougo was Sougo and wouldn't let any defeat stand, but once was enough for Hijikata. He sighed and pushed himself to his feet.

Gintoki bounced up with him. "Really? That's what worked?" He danced around Hijikata. "Finally!"

Hijikata picked up his practice sword, then looked at Gintoki, a smile fluttering around his lips. "Oh no," he said, trying to conceal the glee in his voice, "you don't have a sword. How are you going to—"

Gin was already bounding up the steps and disappearing inside the shrine. He came back a few seconds later, his sword clutched firmly in two hands. He drew it once he got back to Hijikata, and the steel glinted in the sunlight.

There was dried blood on the silk wrappings of the handle. Gintoki must not have been able to clean it after he used it as a brace, or maybe that's how it always was. For the first time since Gintoki had appeared, Hijikata wondered how safe this was, to be alone with an enemy soldier.

"Wanna trade?" Gintoki said. "This is probably the only chance you'll ever have to use the real thing."

"Trade?" Hijikata repeated, blinking. He looked at his wooden sword. "You want me to use your sword?"

"Well, not 'want' necessarily," Gin said. "I'm just offering. If not, I can just use my sheath to fight instead, so I don't accidentally cut your head off. That'd sort of suck."

Hijikata frowned. "You're annoyingly confident."

Gintoki shrugged, and the worst part was, he wasn't even being cocky on purpose. He wasn't smiling, or joking around, but simply offering Hijikata a handicap that could cost Gin his life if Hijikata turned out to be more skilled that he thought. He really, truly believed he would win without breaking a sweat, and that's probably why he had been bugging Hijikata about it for so long. He didn't need to worry about his injuries because he didn't think a fight with Hijikata would be strenuous that he would have to.

"I'm fine without it," Hijikata said, teeth gritted, and raised his sword. He took a deep breath and tried to stop his hands from shaking with rage.

Gin tossed his sword on the ground and raised the scabbard. He was smiling, his movements languid. Despite his claims, it wasn't the position anyone formally trained would have taken.

Hijikata made the first move, bringing the sword down as fast and hard as he could. Gintoki didn't block, but twisted out of the way, stepping around so he ended up behind Hijikata. Before Hijikata could turn, Gintoki swung his scabbard and landed a solid blow to Hijikata's waist.

"Point," Gintoki called, dancing away.

Hijikata barely managed to stay on his feet. Gintoki was fast, much faster than an injured man had any right to be. Much faster than a non-injured one, for that matter. For now, Hijikata could attribute the hit to the shock of his speed (not that he could do that if this were a real fight, he tried not to think), but he had to recover quickly. _Think_. Hijikata wasn't a naturally skilled swordsman, like Sougo, or someone with brute strength, like Kondo. He had to think this through. What about Gintoki's style could be exploited?

Gintoki was standing a few feet off, his makeshift sword resting on his shoulder, watching Hijikata with an insufferable grin plastered across his insufferable face.

Slowly, Hijikata raised his sword back up to the traditional starting posture.

Gin's smile widened. "You know, I never liked those fancy set positions," he said. "They completely give away what you're going to do next."

"No, this is triple-threat," Hijikata said. "Strike low, strike high, strike side."

"I know," Gintoki yawned. "So all I have to do is block all three."

"You're awfully arrogant, aren't you?" He had to goad Gintoki into making the first move. "But a really good swordsman wouldn't end up all the way out here with a rotten slab of meat for a leg, would he?"

"Ooh, Hijikata-kun's so tough, so badass, so anti-hero. Losing to middle schoolers has given you a bit of a potty mouth hasn't it?" He stepped forward, and before Hijikata could see him put his foot down, he was shoulder to shoulder with Hijikata. "Well," he whispered. "Soon shit'll be coming out somewhere besides your mouth."

Hijikata brought his sword up to block just in time. They stared at each other from across the X of their swords. Gintoki was still, infuriatingly, smiling. If it came down to this, Hijikata's bamboo practice sword would snap long before a sheath. He had to break away.

He brought his knee up and kicked Gintoki in the crotch.

Some minutes later, Gintoki gathered up the breath to say, "You've got to stop doing that."

"Doing what?" Hijikata said, carefully not looking at Gin. He was trying to hide a smile. "Winning?"

"Cheating," Gintoki said, and rolled over, taking his hands from his groin like how children uncupped their hands to reveal a beatle nested on their palms. "One day I'll get you into a straight fight."

"You don't seem the type to worry about that type of thing."

"Well, it's different if I can't cheat too," Gintoki said, and spread his arms out in the grass. The hem of his shirt rode up his stomach, and Hijikata tried not to look at how thin he still was, how his skin stretched over his bones. Dark bruises stood out on his ribcage like flowers laid across white marble headstones, blooming purple and red up and down his side. Hijikata wondered how he had missed it, then remembered he saw nothing of the soldier than Gintoki didn't want him to see. "Then it's just not fair," Gin continued. He rolled over on his side, stomach obscured once more, and propped his head up on one hand. "Maybe I'll come back when I can walk properly and you've got enough morals to not beat up an injured soldier."

"You're the one who begged me to fight you!" Hijikata protested.

"But I wanted to win!" Gintoki whined.

Hijikata sighed. "I promise, if I ever see you and neither of us are **hurt** , I'll beat you up fair and square, okay?" He wondered if he actually could. He hadn't so much exploited weaknesses in Gintoki's fighting style as exploit a weakness in his physiology.

"Good enough," Gintoki yawned, and laid back in the grass. "Though I can't keep that promise."

"Hm?" Hijikata asked. He was considering taking a nap. It was a warm day, and he had been up all night, moving everything in Sougo's room (Sougo, as usual, had snuck into Mitsuba's room and slept with her. It was the only embarrassing thing Sougo did that Hijikata pretended not to notice) a few inches to the left, in revenge for Sougo watering down his mayonnaise and mixing in a plant he thought was poison (Hijikata had once told Sougo to avoid it, knowing it was only a matter of time before he saw it mixed into one of his meals).

"'Cause I'll be the one kicking your ass," Gintoki said. "And when I win, you can treat me to a parfait."

Hijikata hesitated. He had been tricked before, but curiosity got the better of him. "What's a parfait?"

"Not sure," Gintoki admitted. "Some fancy foreign thing, I think. But I've heard they're real sweet, you know?"

"Sweet like…sugar?" Hijikata laid back. "You, scary badass soldier, have a sweet tooth?"

"It took you a long time to admit how badass I am," Gin said. "And I don't know, really. I've never had any sweets."

"Never?" Hijikata repeated, turning his head to look at Gintoki. "Your parents didn't make any sweets for you?" Hijikata's mother hadn't done much in that respect, but he had heard this was something mothers did.

"Didn't have 'em," Gin said. "Parents, that is. Not sweets. Though I didn't have those either. And the school wasn't rich enough to buy enough sugar to feed forty children." He sighed. "But I've seen people eating sweets before, and they all looked pretty happy about it."

"If you succeed in driving out the Amanto," Hijikata said, "we won't have parfaits anymore. Not if they're foreign."

"Sweet bean paste is good enough for me," Gin said wistfully. "And if we win, I'm expecting a full pension. I assume I'll be buddy-buddy with the emperor himself. I'll fly myself up to the sun and order a hundred parfaits."

"The Amanto don't come from the sun, stupid," Hijikata said. "The sun's too hot for anything to live on."

"They're aliens, Hijikata-kun," Gin said, patronizing. "Aliens were like, raised to withstand the heat. I'm serious. If you were born on the sun, you'd be saying, 'Earth's much too cold to live on, stupid,' and then the Amanto wouldn't have come and we wouldn't be in this situation." He scoffed. "Besides, when they get their flying ships, they always come in from the direction of the sun. It makes them a real bitch to spot."

"Huh," said Hijikata. And then, "If they come in from the sun's direction, wouldn't they just overshadow it? They'd be easy to see."

"Not _directly_ over the sun, that'd be dumb," Gin said. "Sorta, oblique to it, you know?" He stretched his hand up to the sky and traced a pattern with his finger. "That cloud looks like a whale, doesn't it?"

Hijikata didn't know what a whale looked like, but he was sick of Gintoki knowing more than him. He shouldn't be punished for not traveling all over Japan and destroying it as soon as he got through the tourist attractions. Panties. Parfaits. _Whales._ "More like a weasel, I think."

"If that's a weasel, than the one over there looks like the kanji for 'bullshit.'"

Hijikata rolled over on his stomach. "I knew you couldn't read."

"Just because I've been cursed with a natural perm, it doesn't mean that my skull is full of hairballs," Gintoki said, sounding genuinely hurt about an accusation Hijikata hadn't even thought to make. "I was reading tankoban before this village discovered paper could be used for something other than wiping your ass."

Hijikata laughed. "I doubt you had even _seen_ toilet paper by the time I learned the characters for it. It must be why you're so full of shit."

Gintoki pushed himself up on one hand. "That's the problem, isn't it? Teaching kids a bunch of words they don't know the meaning of, 'cause they live out in the middle of nowhere. Blatant educational whatcha-call-it. Sure, you know how to spell 'woman,' but that doesn't mean you'd know it if you saw one."

Hijikata wondered if Gintoki knew how close he really was to Edo, or if he really did think that they were so far out in the country that Hijikata couldn't even dream of cities. He decided not to mention that Edo was probably just as close as the warfront Gintoki yearned for. He almost said, "Actually, I'm really popular with women," but for once he managed to catch himself before saying something that would bring down unparalleled torment.

Instead, he stared at the sky and wondered if he would jump off a bridge if his friend told him too.


	7. they cleave the gloom of dreams,

Gintoki didn't look at Hijikata when he arrived. He was staring out into the woods, learning on his sword like a staff.

"It's getting closer," he said.

"What is?" Hijikata asked, passing him the box of food.

"The war." Gintoki took it and sat down on the stairs. His walk was better now, almost free of a limp. "Hey, Hijikata-kun, if I promise to keep the army from this village, will that repay my debt to you?"

Hijikata sat down in the dirt pathway. It was hard to concentrate. He knew this was going to come eventually, but not this soon. He had to tell Kondo; there was no avoiding it anymore. He had put it off too long as it was, and now it might be too late.

Gin poked him with a toe. "Hijikata-kun, pay attention to me. Would that repay what I owe you?"

"Shut up," Hijikata said, rubbing at his forehead. "You can't do anything—I've got to warn people, get—How do you know?"

"Well, I can't do anything about your side," Gintoki said, ignoring him. "Or I could try, but you wouldn't like it very much. But the Joui, that'd be easy."

Hijikata slapped his hand against the ground. "You won't be able to do that!" he shouted. "Just...just stop saying that you can."

"Promise me," Gintoki pressed. "If I can keep the Joui out, you can deal with the Amanto, right? They're on your side?"

"Yeah," Hijikata whispered. "Yeah, we can deal with the Amanto."

That seemed to relieve whatever anxiety Gintoki had about the approaching army, but it did nothing for Hijikata. Kondo was too brave to simply pack up and leave for another town. If soldiers came through, there would be confrontation with the dojo. It was possible he could convince Sougo to take Mitsuba and hide somewhere, but not likely.

"They're too far away right now for me to walk there," Gintoki said. "But I'll go as soon as the scouting parties start to brush the outskirts of the wood. If you want me out sooner, you'll have to help me get there."

"You know," Hijikata whispered. "You could join the dojo, if you just lied."

"What's that?" Gintoki cupped a hand around his ear. "Speak up, kiddo."

"Kondo would let you join the dojo," Hijikata repeated. "Don't say you're a deserter—"

"I'm not a deserter."

"—but just a traveler, someone who got attacked by bandits on the way here. Someone who wants to study the Tennen Rishin style. He'd let you in." Even if Kondo did suspect Gintoki was a soldier, he'd still let him in.

Besides that, Gintoki was a good fighter. Even injured, that was obvious. If it came down to protecting the dojo, Gintoki would be an invaluable asset.

"I'm not a deserter," Gintoki said again, and Hijikata snapped out of it.

Of course Gintoki wouldn't abandon his comrades. Of course. And certainly not for him.

Hijikata stood up. "How long do you think it'll take?" he said, trying, trying, to sound unafraid. This was was business, impersonal, a transaction.

Gintoki's face scrunched up in concentration. He counted off on his fingers, mouthing numbers to himself. Eventually, he said, "Depends on where they're going and if they're being chased, along with a bunch of other stuff. But, maybe, a week, I'd say?"

"Thank you," Hijikata said. That gave them enough time to figure something out. "I'll be back." But for now, he had to get to Kondo.


	8. clanging, clanging upon the heart

Hijikata sat behind Kondo, tightly clenched fists resting on his knees.

"We've already begun investigation of the general houses," said the official, his casually crossed legs a glaring reminder of the difference in status. "But I decided to take it upon myself to inform you of the situation, Kondo-san. I have nothing but the highest respect for your position here."

"Thank you," said Kondo, much too gruffly. He was no politician. He had always felt uncomfortable with these kind of formalistic proceedings, with anything outside of the rough world of the dojo. Whenever he could, Hijikata took over those roles; he wrote the letters, rehearsed Kondo on the appropriate words to say and what people really meant, made sure the dojo had at least one dull bureaucrat.

But this had been a surprise. The official was just arriving when Hijikata came back from his meeting with Gintoki. There was no time to tell Kondo anything, least of all the news he had learned.

"I'm sure you've already realized how close the front is drawing to you," said the official.

Kondo nodded. Hijikata barely **stopped** himself from raising his head and staring at him in dumb astonishment. How had Kondo found out? What signals had Hijikata been missing—how had he not noticed the stress that he could now see forming sharp lines of taut muscle on Kondo's back? Had Kondo been trying to protect _Hijikata_? He could almost have laughed, and then the realization came: Gintoki hadn't lied.

"The truth is," the official continued. "We've recently lost track of a very important person. A general, of sorts, of the Joui. I believe he is referred to as one of the rebel Four Heavenly Kings." He gave a short laugh, which was not at all pleasant. But Hijikata's anxiety, which had sat in his stomach like a stone, or one of Mitsuba's over-spiced meals, began to lighten. Some part of him must have believed the government had found out about Hijikata's treason and had come for him. But this was unrelated. "One of our soldiers had managed to shoot him, but we lost track of him after he took cover in a nearby forest. This is all confidential information, you understand. I can only tell you this because of the absolute trust we have in your people here."

"Again," Kondo said, bowing his head slightly. "We're honored. But I don't understand your purpose here."

Hijikata winced. Kondo was much too blunt.

"Excuse my obliqueness. Simply put, it is imperative that we find him, and we believe he's somewhere in this area. The Shiroyasha—as he is called, both on his side and our own—has great significance in the war," the official said. "His disappearance marks the potential loss of enough tactical information to cripple the Joui effort. If we can get our hands on even half of his intel…" The official shook his head. "Well, the benefits would be unprecedented. Their supply routes, along with the names and locations whoever is giving them food and equipment, could be completely cut off and the perpetrators executed. Their formations, their leaders, undercover operatives...well, it's all infomation we couldn't get from a common soldier."

A missing soldier. The Shiroyasha. _The White Demon_. Fear pricked up Hijikata's skin.

The official was almost grinning now. "And beyond mere strategies, the Shiroyasha is the crux of Joui moral. With him missing, they are holding onto a chance of life. As they should—any minute he could find his way back to them, and our only chance will be gone. But if we could our hands on him, they'd break. The Shiroyasha is no saint to be made into a martyr. He's a god to them. And if the Amanto can kill a god, what chance do they have?"

The official reached into his sleeve and pulled out a thin, square box, which he opened. "But those are both reasons for the Shogun," he said. "There is a one, pure reason, so that even a man unconcerned with high strategy can understand how anxious we are to secure the Shiroyasha's capture." He lifted a stack of papers from the box and slid them across the tatami. Kondo picked them up and looked at them. Hijikata peered around his shoulder.

They were photographs. Hijikata had heard of them before, even if he'd never seen any. One of the Amanto technologies. Travelers going from the city had explained them as like an instant painting, but they were so much clearer than that. It was real life compressed into a few inches. But more shocking to Hijikata was what they were of.

The first one was of a bird's eye view of darkened battlefield. Some artificial light must have been used to take it, because everything seemed shinier, unnatural, the tone of their skin different **than** that of the red shadows cast by a candle. And in the middle of the photo stood a man who was clearly Gintoki. The armor he still wore was glistening with blood, some of it strange, alien colors, but a lot of it an all too human red. The sword he now used as a crutch had been caught in the finishing moments of a swing, his arms raised high and muscles taunt as he beheaded the man—the human—in front of him. It was blurry, faint, but Hijikata could see something in the tilt of the man's head, a sliver of nothingness following the path of Gintoki's blade, that told him this was taken just seconds before his head flew off and landed in the dirt.

The next photographs were no better. Gintoki's white headband flapping in the wind as he put a fist through an alien's chest, Gintoki standing back to back with another Joui, swords pointed at the hordes of Bakufu soldiers surrounding them, Gintoki so covered in clotting blood that his hair seemed to glow red, Gintoki moving so fast through swathes of Amanto that his limbs had blurred into a smudge of white. Hijikata couldn't tear his eyes away as Kondo flipped through them, eyes the color of blood saturated dirt gazing up at the camera, familiar hands tearing armor off of human and alien alike, and the last one, oh the last one, of Gintoki writhing on the ground, pain screaming through every line of his body, an arrow through his leg, Amanto swarming around him, their faces a mixture of fear and disbelieving delight.

Hijikata wanted to throw up.

"As you can see," said the official. "The best reason to find the Shiroyasha is because we want to stop a violent criminal. His skill is unprecedented. He's got half of our soldiers believing he's a demon as well."

Hijikata's hands shook. "What will you do to him once you find him?" he asked. He wasn't supposed to talk. His purpose was to take notes and nothing more. The sheet of paper on the low desk in front of him lay blank, the brush untouched.

The official looked at him, surprised. He probably hadn't even noticed Hijikata's presence.

"Toshi," Kondo started, half reprimand, half concern.

"I mean," Hijikata continued, staring at his fists, willing them to stop shaking, for his voice not to falter. "Someone like that doesn't deserve the honor of seppuku, do they?" He dared to look up at the official. His eyes were burning, his cheeks flushed with the shame of what he'd been doing. He'd turn himself in now, if not for the fear of what it would do to Kondo, to Mitsuba, and yes, even Sougo.

The official smiled at him. "Kondo, it seems you have a very patriotic subordinate."

Kondo was staring at Hijikata. "Yes," he said, hesitantly.

"As it stands, boy," the official said to Kondo, "He's considered a deserter, not a general, as well as a traitor to Japan. It is unlikely that he will be given the privilege of seppuku." He paused for a second, considering. "More people have been realizing the danger Joui forces truly present. Bands of them, the ones too cowardly to join the war, have been executing any attendants of the Shogun in the most base manner possible, and displaying their heads upon poles for us to find in the morning." The official shook his head. "It's tragic that it's had to come to this for people to truly comprehend the threat they pose. But because of it, it is likely the same punishment will be inflicted upon the Shiroyasha. I imagine it would be extremely demoralizing to have one's leader beheaded, his head stuck upon a spear like a flag and waved upon the front lines."

Gintoki had teased Hijikata for never venturing into a city, while Joui roamed the streets killing retainers.

Hijikata bowed his head, and the official returned to his talk with Kondo.

"We've been clearing all the villages in the area," the official said. "I'm not accusing you of anything, of course, which is why I wanted to talk to you myself. But tomorrow, I wish to inspect your students, and make sure that the Shiroyasha has not somehow managed to hide himself here. I will require one of your rooms to stay in tonight, and another to do the inspection."

Kondo nodded. "I will provide all the help I can."

It was hard to sneak away after that. Everyone in the dojo was busy trying to please their eminent guest, and Hijikata was forced to run around preventing people from fucking things up. Even when he did manage to get away, the village was overrun with soldiers scouting the area, investigating each villager's home and crawling through the woods.

But Hijikata had to see Gintoki one last time before he figured out a way to hand him over without risking Kondo's life or reputation. At this point, he had very little hope for himself.

He crept through the woods, avoiding the main path to the shrine completely. Ever so often he would hear a stick crunch underfoot, or the faint sound of leaves been brushed aside, and he would freeze, holding his breath as a soldier passed by.

The shrine was empty. He cursed, too loudly, but he shouldn't have expected anything different. If Gintoki—no, the _Shiroyasha_ , and Hijikata was damned if 'demon' didn't fit him even better than ' **silver** ' and 'time'—had stayed put, he surely would have been found by now, and there was nothing he was better at than reading the tides.

He went back to the wood, trying not to let himself fall into a panic. Gintoki—the Shiroyasha, the Shiroyasha, the Shiroyasha—had given him every sign he wasn't a normal soldier, but Hijikata had refused to let himself believe it. He was the idiot who had kept a monster alive.

"Yo, Hijikata-kun," said the Shiroyasha, and Hijikata turned around, opening his mouth to let out a scream.

Gintoki pressed his hand against Hijikata's mouth. "What the hell are you doing?" he whispered, eyebrows scrunching together. He was wearing his armor again, instead of the undershift he had been lounging in these past weeks. Thank the gods he hadn't left it in the shrine for anyone to find. "Don't go wandering around with all these soldiers about, do you want to get skewered?"

Hijikata tried to struggle out of his grip, but Gintoki just pulled him closer. "If I let you go, are you going to scream again?"

Hijikata licked his hand. Gintoki pulled away with the faintest, most subtle of shrieks, and wiped his hand on the bark of a tree.

"What'd you do that for?" he began to demand, but Hijikata ignored him. Seeing Gintoki in person was making him even angrier.

"I don't know, _Shiroyasha_ ," Hijikata spat.

Gintoki's face turned carefully blank. "Oh," he said, the syllable a block of ice down Hijikata's spine.

Hijikata grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him up against a tree. He didn't even try to resist. "Where the hell do you think you get off coming here, you absolute monster?" Hijikata eyes stung. "You fucking tricked—"

"What, exactly," Gintoki interrupted, his voice steel, cutting through Hijikata's anger as easily as his sword cut through the Amanto, "are you mad about? That I didn't tell you I _actually_ fought? Did you think I was the kind of soldier who just stood around and looked pretty? If I knew how to get away with that, I would." He pried Hijikata's hands from his collar and wrapped his fingers around Hijikata's wrists. "But if I did, people would die, Hijikata-kun."

"So it's better to kill someone else?" Hijikata said, struggling against his grip.

"Yes," Gintoki said simply. "I don't want _my_ people to die. But please, tell me, because I really don't understand. How does this change anything? You knew I was an enemy soldier. Soldiers kill. There's no difference if they call me the Shiroyasha or Soldier No. 547. It doesn't change how dead they end up. So why are you so mad?"

"Because you might actually make a difference," Hijikata said. "I thought I was giving you an extra month of life, and then you'd go back and get killed, just like that."

"You're mad because I'm not going to _die_ ," Gintoki started.

Hot tears rolled down Hijikata's cheeks before he could control himself. "I was scared for you!" he shouted. They both froze, straining to hear the sounds of soldiers descending down on them. Nothing came.

Quieter, Hijikata said, "I wanted you to stay because I wanted you to live. But…but you're important. Hell, maybe you really will eat parfaits with the emperor on the sun, if I let you go back and you lead the Joui to victory." He clenched his fists. "So my choice is to kill my country or to kill my friend. Isn't obvious what's worth more?"

It was dumb, Hijikata was dumb and he was cursing himself for it. The first friend he made was a war criminal playing on his sympathies for his own wretched survival.

In the ensuing silence, the quiet click of metal as Gintoki drew his sword seemed to echo.

"I'll make it easy for you then," he said, pressing the flat of his katana against Hijikata's neck. "Choose between your country and your life. Help me escape."

"That's easy," Hijikata said, looking up. The moon shone through the trees. "I'm prepared to die."

Gintoki clicked his tongue. "Damn self-sacrificing country samurai." He took his sword away. "How about this: your country or your family? If I get caught, the first thing I'll tell them is that some youngster, what was his name? Oh, it was Hijikata Toshiro—"

"You said you forgot my given name," said Hijikata.

"I lied." Gintoki grinned, kept talking, "'Hijikata Toshiro helped me recover, but it was that dojo he belongs to that provided medical supplies. No, no, I didn't coerce them or anything, I was delirious with fever and too injured to stand. Oh, sir, I know you have that surveillance camera always buzzing around my face, didn't you see the pictures? They just said they wanted to help any way they could. There was another boy too, some kid, like eleven years old maybe? He helped Hijikata-kun. There may have been a few others, but those two really stood out. Maybe a pretty weather lady type girl, I'm not sure.'" He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. "And poor me, I won't be able to help spilling it all, no matter how much I want to protect the dojo that saved me. I'll be under duress. Do you know how the Bakufu gets information from prisoners?"

"Torture," Hijikata said, voice shaking.

"Torture!" Gintoki repeated. "You know what they'll do to me? No?"

"They'll behead you," Hijikata said. "They told me they'd stick your head on a pike and display it to your troops to demoralize them."

"Yeah, yeah," Gintoki waved him down. It may have only been Hijikata's imagination that he turned a shade paler. "But you can't get battle plans from a head on a stick. No, what they'll do is, they'll tie me up by my ankles and hang me upside down. Then, they'll take great, five-inch spikes—" He held up his hands to demonstrate the length, "—and shove them through the balls of my feet until there's just a big hole, no bone or skin or muscle to get in the way. Then, if I still haven't told them everything, and let's face it, I'll probably will have, do you know how tough the muscles in your feet are, they'll stick two candles in the holes and light them." He leaned closer to Hijikata, his breath hot against his cheek. "Do you get what that means? It's not just wax dripping down my legs, that'd be fine and sorta kinky, I can take that. No, the wax'll melt down inside of my calves." He patted his injured leg. "Do you think, like this, the wax will bubble out of me like a sponge? Maybe it'd help, right? Seal up the injury? It's worth a shot. There's always a chance I'll live through an injury horrible enough to get an honorable discharge, you know. Or maybe the Bakufu will just use the chance to think of some new torture. I'm sure the Amanto have something good."

He pushed himself away from Hijikata. "Yeah, it'll be pretty hard not to spill the name of the dojo that helped me. And after I'm dead, they'll probably do the same to you. After all, a Bakufu-sponsored dojo helping out a rebel? That can't be a one time incident. And after you, your sensei. Maybe even that eleven year old. Any other family you've got hidden away. It'll be the Tennen Rishin Ryu Purge."

Gintoki stared at Hijikata, waiting for a response. Hijikata didn't have one. Eventually, Gin said, "You see, the thing is, I can't die yet."

A few more beats of silence. "If my head gets stuck on a pole," Gintoki continued, babbling, "Zura will cry. And then Takasugi will desecrate my corpse for making Zura cry. And Tatsuma will throw my ashes into space or sell my scalp as a merkin, or something dumb like that. I have to go make sure that doesn't happen."

"Fine," Hijikata said. "Fine, fine, fine. You got me. I'll help you." He ran a hand through his hair. This had to be the right choice, right? "What do you need me to do? You said you couldn't walk to your camp without help, right? You want me to walk you home?" His fists unclenched. Now that he only had one choice, it seemed much easier. The pit of guilt in his stomach was almost familiar by now.

Gintoki made a face. "I'm not going to let a boy who doesn't even know how to skin a rabbit walk me through the woods at night with soldiers everywhere. We'll die."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Hijikata asked.

"You don't know how to walk in a forest!" Gintoki said. "The only reason I found you is because you were acting like you had a personal vendetta against every crunchy leaf and fallen branch."

"Sorry for not having so much experience playing ninja," Hijikata said. He was giddy with fear and evaporating anger. "For being in the forest for legitimate, legal reasons where no one dies."

Gintoki sheathed his sword and folded his arms across his chest. "Would I call this teenage angst or teenage rebellion?" he asked. "You used to be a much gentler soul."

"It's just blackmail," Hijikata said. Gin's sword safely away, he could try and take him down. But some instinct told Hijikata that despite his wins in their play fights, it wouldn't be a good idea. Besides, for it to make any difference, he'd have to kill him, and Hijikata didn't think he could do that with his bare hands.

"Right," Gintoki said, scratching the back of his neck. "Teenage extortion, I forgot. Okay. What you need to do is take me to your dojo."

"No. Are you stupid?"

Gin frowned. "What's so stupid about it?"

"Do you think _I'm_ stupid? You threaten my family and then want me to bring you into my house?"

"When you put it that way," Gintoki agreed. "But it was a conditional threat. No worries unless I suddenly and suspiciously get arrested."

"That's the thing. We're not being let off from the inspection," Hijikata argued. "Everyone in the household will be interviewed. Every room will be searched. There's no place for you to go."

"Disguise me as a student, then," Gintoki said. "Stop making me do all the thinking by myself. It's not that hard to come up with a few ideas."

"You think that _you_ could pass as a student?" Hijikata asked, letting out a bitter laugh. "It'll never happen."

"I can't think of anything that would have caused you to put so little faith in me," said Gintoki. "But you're just going to have to suck it up."


	9. they come shaking in triumph

Gintoki stretched himself out on Hijikata's futon and let out a deep, happy sigh. "It's been so long," he moaned, pulling the covers up to his chin. He glanced over at Hijikata with half-lidded eyes. "I hope you appreciate this, rich boy."

Hijikata stood at the door, his heart pounding. This had been such a bad idea.

It hadn't been as hard to sneak Gintoki in as Hijikata feared. Surprisingly, though it really shouldn't have been, Gintoki could sneak around quite well when he wanted to (and wasn't that what had gotten Hijikata into this mess? Underestimating Gintoki just because he was loud and crude and looked so young?), and Hijikata's room opened out into the trees.

Gintoki's eyes fluttered shut. "I knew you were lying about not having a cute weather girl," he said, mumbling into the blankets. "I can smell it."

Hijikata's face scrunched up in disgust. "Smell it?"

"Burnt food," Gintoki clarified. "Everyone knows the easiest interesting trait to give a shounen heroine is being bad at cooking."

"Mitsuba doesn't burn food," Hijikata said, automatically on the defense. He considered his words for a second, then admitted, "Though it might have more exposure to heat than normal."

"There you go," Gintoki murmured, and fell asleep. Hijikata could tell because of the soft snoring.

Hijikata kicked him awake. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he hissed, squatting down beside Gintoki.

Gintoki's eyes lit up with such a look of genuine, unfiltered delight that Hijikata actually managed to feel _more_ nervous. "You're right," he said, in a whisper less for, say, making sure no one overheard, and more for the awe usually reserved for legends coming true. He sat up, pulled his feet out from under the futon, and began carefully untying his straw waraji sandals. Then he began peeling of his socks, which were dripping wet and covered in mud. Hijikata thought of them rubbing against his futon seconds before and decided he shouldn't bother fighting Gintoki for the bed.

Gintoki let out a happy sigh and wiggled his damp toes. "You wouldn't believe how long it's been since I've been able to take these off," he said, reaching down to pick at a yellowed nail. "Can people grow mold?"

"I meant," Hijikata said, staring as Gintoki industriously set to peeling off the ends of each awful toenail, "Don't you have a plan?"

"Yep," Gintoki said cheerfully. Hijikata watched as he unstrapped his leather suneate greaves from his shins. For a moment, his fingers hovered above the cloth legging kyahan that protected the skin beneath, before he moved up to remove the rest of his armor. He didn't have as much of it as Hijikata believed a samurai should. And only really poor vassals and retainers still had leather armor; all the good samurai had long since moved onto iron and chainmail, and now were making the transition to super-strong Amanto metals. But Gintoki's armor was all old leather and faded white cloth.

Hijikata forced himself to be happy about this. "Are you going to tell it to me?" he ventured.

Gintoki stopped undressing and looked at Hijikata. "It seems to me," he said, "that I've done all I can. Now I just have to react to whatever comes. This part is all up to you."

"What?"

Gintoki shrugged. "I dunno. Do you have a student registry you need to forge me onto, preferably not with my real name? Any uniform you need to give me? Super secret finishing moves privy to only elite members of the dojo you should teach me? Or maybe just telling me 'my' sensei's name?" He laid back down, propping himself up on an elbow. "You're the expert here, Hijikata-kun."

Hijikata took a deep breath. Then he took several more. He did know what he had to do, now that the Shiroyasha had gone and spelled it out for him. He hoisted himself off the floor, walked to the door, said, "It's Kondo-sensei," and left. A few seconds later, he opened the door a crack and whispered, "And don't you dare leave."

Gintoki gave him a thumbs up. "Yamada Tarou is a good name," he whispered back. "Very innocuous."

Hijikata padded down the hall. It was quiet enough that he could almost force himself to believe that there was nothing wrong.

The official had been moved into Mitsuba's room, one of the more lavish rooms in the dojo (not that it meant much here—it was just slightly bigger than the student's rooms) and, importantly, close enough that they could hear anything happening in there but far enough away that no one felt impeded. Mitsuba had laid out a futon in Sougo's room. He could hear the floor squeak as she sat up to cough, though it was almost muffled by Sougo's snores.

At the end of the hall, Hijikata pressed himself to the door into Kondo's room and whispered, "Are you awake?" This was more for Hijikata's sake than any courtesy towards Kondo; he could hear the loud snores from inside; these could outclass Sougo's any night.

The snores stopped, and Hijikata could hear Kondo yawn and push himself upright. "Come in," he said, and Hijikata slid the door open. His heart was racing. Each beat seemed to force a shudder through his whole body.

Kondo looked at him, concern brightening his sleep-dull eyes. "Come sit down, Toshi," he said, patting the end of his futon. "Tell me what's wrong."

It was times like this that Hijikata could forget that they were barely a year apart. Tamegorou had always said the same thing whenever Hijikata had wandered in after a nightmare (or, and he would never tell this to anyone, when he had sought out his brother just because he felt scared and alone in a big house where everyone hated him).

Hijikata sat down. "Kondo," he said, and the words bubbled up his throat and poured out of his mouth, like they had been waiting to escape. "Tomorrow, I don't know what will happen but I think it'll go very wrong, and you just...you just have to trust me, because it was my mistake and I'll get us through it, I promise." He took a breath, aware he wasn't making any sense, and tried to calm himself down. "I mean...I've done something _awful_ , but—"

"Toshi, I'm sure that whatever it is, it can't be as bad as you're making it out to be." Kondo reached over and put a big hand on Hijikata's shoulder.

"There's going to be a person tomorrow," Hijikata said, choosing each word carefully. "And you're not going to know who he is—or you'll recognize him, but you shouldn't—and I'm going to say he's a student, and please, _please_ , don't look surprised, or don't say anything, just pretend you don't know anything."

"That won't be hard," Kondo said. "What's going on?"

"I can't tell you," Hijikata said, and it was agonizing, but...Kondo had to be warned, but he couldn't be told. There was still a chance, if Hijikata and Gintoki were caught, that the rest of the family could plead ignorance. If Kondo could tell the interrogator that a trusted student had told him something was going to happen, and he had simply believed it would be for the good of the dojo and of Japan, he might get off lightly. If he admitted that he knew that Hijikata was sheltering the Shiroyasha under the official's nose, that would be unforgivable. But if Kondo didn't have any warning that something was up, he would spoil it before it even began. "Just trust me."

Hijikata didn't deserve anything from Kondo, and he especially didn't deserve it when Kondo nodded solemnly and said, "Alright."

From there, it didn't take long Hijikata to find the registry of all members and discover that Harada Sanosuke was visiting his family back in the Iyo-Matsuyama Domain. He wrote in that Harada had returned a few days ago, but had been injured on the way back and was currently resting. Satisfied, Hijikata went back to his room.

And laid eyes on a nightmare.

Sougo had a knee in Gintoki's stomach and locked his hands around Gintoki's wrists. They both looked at Hijikata when he walked in.

"Oh, it's _you_ ," they said at the same time, with equal amounts of disdain. Sougo frowned down at Gintoki.

"Fuck," Hijikata said. "Damn it, Sougo, get off him."

"Nah," Sougo said.

"'Kay, that sounds enough like permission," said Gintoki, and brought his left leg, his good leg, up and above Sougo's head and rested his knee on Sougo's right shoulder. Before either Hijikata or Sougo could react, Gintoki pushed his leg back to the left, and Sougo tumbled off him, losing his grip on Gintoki's wrists. "Is this the kid you could never beat, Hijikata-kun?" he asked, pushing himself up and leering down at Sougo.

Hijikata grabbed Sougo by the collar before he could retaliate and glared at Gintoki. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Are you blaming me?" Gintoki looked genuinely wounded, but that didn't mean anything. He pointed at Sougo. "That brat just attacked an innocent stranger in his sleep." He paused, then added, "An innocent, wounded stranger. A _veteran_."

Sougo untangled himself from Hijikata's grasp and pushed him away. "You're the one they're looking for, aren't you? And you—" he turned to Hijikata "—you're sheltering him. I always knew you were an idiotic scumbag with delusions of grandeur and a tendency towards violence, that you were raised in a gutter and hated by everyone who was forced to lay eyes on your awful face, that you don't deserve any of the attention Mitsuba and Kondo give you—"

"Oi," said Hijikata.

"—and that the only cure for being you is to commit seppuku or possibly light yourself on fire, which I have tried my best to help you with—"

"Um," said Gintoki.

"—but I didn't know you were a dirty traitor who sheltered terrorists and put the safety of some filthy samurai's boot-licker over that of the people who took you in." Sougo took a deep breath, and for a horrified second Hijikata thought he was going to continue, but Gintoki burst out laughing before he could say anything else.

Hijikata ignored the outburst and took his chance. Putting his hand on Sougo's shoulder, squatting down so they were face to face, and catching Sougo's foot before it could collide with his groin, he said, "Just this once, we're in complete agreement. But you have to help me. He's got us in a bind; if he doesn't escape, the Shogunate will blame this on Kondo."

"And if he does escape, who do you think they'll blame then?" Sougo hissed.

"We'll have a better chance."

"This is all your fault."

Hijikata took a deep breath. "I completely agree."

Sougo subsided a little in Hijikata's grip. "Okay," he said.

"Really?" It had been a long, long day; he weakened his hold.

Sougo ducked down, grabbed Gintoki's sword where it lay by Hijikata's futon, and unsheathed it. "I see two options to getting us out of this. One, claim all responsibility and kill him, then yourself. Two, kill yourself, I'll blame him, and he can be tried for all his crimes plus one."

"There's definitely more than two options here," Gintoki said, a trace of laughter still lacing his words. "You could kill me, then kill Hijikata yourself. Or the three of us could stage a coup, and take all the officials hostage, which would result in Hijikata's death sometime in the close future."

"Will you shut up?" Sougo said, moving his eyes but not his sword. "The only reason I'm not turning you in right now is because I can't figure out a way to get a dead Hijikata out of this."

Gintoki whistled. "Hiji-kun, what did you do to this kid?" He sat with one leg crossed, leaning his elbow on his good knee. "Listen, the reason you're not killing me is because there's no way in eight hells that the government is going to accept that a samurai-in-training stumbled across a criminal of my caliber and just handcuffed him."

Sougo frowned, then sat down cross-legged in front of Gintoki, laying the sword across his knees and keeping a hand on the hilt. "So, boss, what you're telling me is that I should kill you?"

Gintoki waggled his finger at Sougo. "That would have been the ideal option. However! I am in your house."

"I think that's the biggest problem," Sougo said.

"You bringing in a dead me is bad enough," Gintoki continued. "I mean, I _am_ a renowned warrior, famed across the universe. They'd be pretty suspicious if an eleven year old and a Hijikata—"

"Hey," Hijikata protested.

"—brought me down, when the united armies of Japan and the solar system couldn't."

"But they'd forgive it," Sougo said. "Because you'd be dead."

Gintoki stuck out his tongue. "Oi, oi, there's no need to be so callous. That's me you're talking about. And I'm getting to that. A dead me that's just _around_ is all well and good, but a dead me that's in your dojo, bandaged, in your private quarters? That's suspicious."

"Yes," Sougo agreed. "But you'd be dead."

"And it'd look like you were sheltering me until someone important-ish came asking, and then you freaked out," Gintoki said. "Betrayal of the shogun and cowardice to boot."

Sougo looked up at Hijikata, and for heart-stopping moment, Hijikata interpreted it as plaintive; his eleven year old senior's first time asking Hijikata for advice. But Sougo said, "If I left now, I'm sure Hijikata wouldn't hesitate to indict me when he's inevitably discovered."

"Sougo," Hijikata said, "I know that—" _we've had our differences, but I would never actually betray you like that_ , he would have said, but Gintoki was making frantic gestures behind Sougo's back.

"He would, the bastard," Gintoki agreed jovially. "And I know we'd be caught too, because, between you and me—" he leaned forward and stage-whispered, "this guy's kinda of stupid."

Sougo took Gintoki's sword off his knees and gently placed it on the ground in front of him. The he stood up, turned to face Hijikata. "This," he said, "This is something I will never forgive you for," and Hijikata was taken aback by just how adult he sounded, the maturity of the hate in his voice, something that wasn't his usual fiery vitriol but something deep and abiding and Hijikata knew right then that any chance of reconciliation between them was lost forever. Sougo took a deep breath, obviously steadying himself, and then said, turning back to Gintoki, "The problem here, obviously, is that you're ugly."

Gintoki leaned forward and poked a finger at Sougo's chest. Before he could fully open his mouth, Hijikata stretched his foot out and kicked (gently) at Gintoki's bad knee. While Gintoki was busy going sheet-white and trying to clutch at his leg without actually touching it, Sougo said. "Hijikata, go out and gather, say," he hesitated, briefly, "ten, fifteen walnuts."

"And what are you planning?" Hijikata asked.

"He needs a makeover," Sougo said. "Mush, doggy."

Hijikata mushed. He could be the mature one in the situation, even if it rankled, and even if he spent the twenty-five minutes it took to find thirteen walnuts in the dead of night alternatively swearing and kicking trees.

Once he was finished with the harvest, Sougo sent him off to the family room to boil the walnuts for half an hour. Hijikata sat cross-legged in front of the irori, watching the water bubble up and gradually turn darker and darker. He should have made himself tea, or gotten some food, while he was here. It had been a long night and would turn into an even longer day. But he found that even the thought of food made him feel sick, and though his nerves kept him awake, he couldn't bring himself to move, to even do so much as to tear his eyes away from the simple fire, to the point where the heat sent floating mirages dancing across his vision.

When he returned, the sword had disappeared back into its sheath, Sougo was bent over Gintoki's leg, examining the wound, and Gintoki was looking at Sougo with something like begrudging respect. The leg, while markedly improved from the first time Hijikata had laid eyes on it, was not pretty. Deep, ugly bruises had bloomed on every patch of skin healed enough to sport a color besides red, running up Gintoki's thigh. The contrast of the green-grey-purple bruises against his tanned skin made the leg look unnatural, as if a graverobber had stitched one of his finds onto an amputee. Miraculously, there was no sign of infection that Hijikata could detect, but the knee that had been exposed to the bone was still messy, all still-wet blood clots and flaps of skin.

And Sougo was examining all this with the same forensic curiosity as Kondo examined the interior of his right nostril. He sat back on his heels as Hijikata set the still-hot concoction of walnuts and water on the floor.

"There's no way we can pass this off as a dojo injury," Sougo said. "Attempted murder, maybe."

"I've penned him in on the roster as Harada, attacked by rebel forces on his way home," Hijikata said. "Perhaps we can keep him in the infirmary; they may not think to inspect there."

Gintoki looked up from rewrapping his leg long enough to roll his eyes. "Yeah, like they won't be specifically looking for a guy with a pulverized right leg. That'll be the first place they go."

"I could give you another injury," Sougo offered. "To hide the trail." While he was talking, he dragged the steaming bucket between Gintoki's outstretched legs, then stepped behind him. Unceremoniously, but quick as thought, he dunked Gintoki's head, scalp first, into the bucket.

"Alright," Sougo said, putting his knee on the back of Gintoki's neck and leaning his weight forward as Gintoki thrashed uselessly. "How much have you told Kondo?"

"Almost nothing," Hijikata promised.

"My sister?"

Hijikata's temper flared. "Nothing, and you won't either."

Sougo leaned more of his weight on Gintoki's back so he could look down at Gintoki's leg. "She could probably—"

"No," Hijikata said. "Mitsuba's the only one they may spare. They won't kill a woman if they don't think she knows anything. We're not involving her."

"You involved her the moment that you didn't kill this guy," Sougo said, expression distorting. "You really think that they'll let her go if—"

"Drop it," Hijikata snapped. "None of that matters now. All we can do is try and see this through, and—are you drowning him on purpose?"

Sougo looked down. Gintoki had stopped struggling awhile ago, and the bubbles rippling up from his half-breaths had ceased as well. "He should be able to breathe," Sougo said, anger replaced with curiosity. "Maybe his face is smooshed up against the sides."

They considered this.

"Maybe you should let him go," Hijikata suggested.

Sougo frowned. "I'm not sure if his hair will be dyed enough yet."

"It won't be the only thing that's died, soon."

Sougo grabbed the back of Gintoki's collar and heaved up upright. Gintoki gasped for breath as he was heaved backwards, then spent a few more seconds dramatically heaving and spitting out lumps of boiled walnut. "What the _hell_ ," he sputtered. "What the hell was that for?"

Hijikata stared at Gintoki. He looked at Gintoki's hair, down to Gintoki's face, back up to the hair. He burst into laughter that was hysterical around the edges, doubling over and gripping at his stomach. There were surely other giveaways, but Gintoki wouldn't be recognizable as the Shiroyasha on sight anymore. Sougo had dyed Gintoki's hair a splotchy dark brown, darker with it still dripping wet. There was even a ring of brown skin around Gintoki's hairline, where the liquid had just barely reached.

"We can tie a headband around that," Sougo said.

Gintoki reached forward, grabbed his sword, and unsheathed it. Sougo and Hijikata were both on their feet, hands going to their hips— Hijikata to the hilt of his own sword, Sougo to where his would be if he had it—but Gintoki was using the blade's edge to inspect himself in its reflection. He groaned. "I'm sorry for everything I said about the silhouette being the most important part of a character design," he whispered, like a prayer. "It was definitely the color palette all along." Louder, he said, "I've decided. I'm going to desert. I can't go back now, no one would recognize me."

Hijikata was unimpressed. "Surely the white isn't the only part of your image."

"Have you heard people talking about the Tea-colored Demon? The Chairoyasha?" He spread his arms. "That sounds like a kind of novelty furniture."

"I haven't heard anyone talking about a demon of any color," Hijikata said. "I first heard you mentioned this afternoon."

Gintoki's grin cut a sharp line across his face. "What's that saying about not living to tell tales?"

"Why don't you tell it to the Bakufu tomorrow?" Sougo asked.

"Someone's up past their bedtime." Gintoki half-covered his mouth and whispered to Hijikata, "Put your kid to sleep, he's getting cranky."

"Hey, Hijikata, maybe you should put your dog to sleep?" Sougo said. "It's cruel to keep something so mangey around as a pet." He knelt down by Gintoki. "He's got no friends, you see, so he's kind of a wimp about this sort of thing."

Gintoki pushed Sougo away with his shoulder. "Don't try and get me in on your comedy routine when it's me you're talking about killing."

"I'm happy you two are getting along," Hijikata said. "Sougo...maybe—thanks for the hair, but you should really go back to your room now. Mitsuba's going to notice you're gone."

Sougo hoisted himself to his feet. "Fine," he snapped. He stopped before the door and said, "If anything goes wrong tomorrow, and it will, I'm going to do everything I can to protect my sister and Kondo." He opened the sliding door. "I don't give a shit about either of you." The door slammed shut behind him.

Gintoki and Hijikata watched as the washi paper panels shuddered in the frame.

"Cheerful kid," Gintoki said.

Hijikata put his head in his hands. "We are so dead."


End file.
